My husband and I took three horses to the west block of Grasslands Park in June. It was amazing. We camped at the Equestrian campground, which at this point in time is basically a set of six corrals and a watering trough - but that was all that was needed. The equestrian campground shares a beautiful new pit toilet (so new it doesn't even smell!) with the Belza Day Use area. The most important fact about this is that the day use area has trees! The only ones for miles around. Shade was incredibly important during the heat of the day - and other than our horsetrailer's shadow, there was nowhere else to find any.

The setting is incredible. Rolling grass covered hills are on either side of the Frenchman River valley. These hills go on for miles, and are covered in original prairie wool. Even the hardiest of pioneers couldn't plow them. They are home to roaming buffalo, which is just way cool. At the time we were there, the bulls had been pushed out of the herd, so everywhere you looked you would find one or two by themselves, hangin' out and eating, resting, or having a dustbath. They are basically scared of people and will normally run if they see you, however of course it is smart to just give them a wide berth.

The riding is unparallelled. It is a dream come true for someone who read cowboy stories of ranching days in the prairies. You can ride all day without running into a fence. Simply amazing.

The wildlife viewing is also amazing. We saw scads of whitetails and mulies, including a mulie mom with two adorable fawns. We also saw a rattlesnake sleeping on the road, a garter snake, several jackrabbits and of course the black tailed prairie dogs in their colonies. And the birds...for those of us who live too far north we got a wonderful earful of meadowlark song. As you are riding there is a constant burst of activity as small birds take flight from the short grass prairie - many I couldn't identify, but there was always birdsong wherever we went. I also met lark buntings for the first time, curlews, bobolink, prairie falcons, brown thrashers, western flycatchers (which is funny since although we live in Alberta, we only have eastern flycatchers here), nighthawks (we hear them all the time but rarely see them), and saw a bittern and a sora. You never know as you ride over the next hill what you might find. For a landscape so demanding, its surprising how much lives there.

And the nights. I have never seen such stars. The Milky Way goes all the way to the horizon. It is truly worth going just to see what the sky used to look like at night before all the light pollution. I swear you can see twice as many stars there as anywhere else. And while you are laying there, amazed by the beauty of the constellations, you are enrobed in complete silence. During the day there is birdsong and wind, but at night (at least for several of the nights we were there) the wind dropped and of course the birds were sleeping. It was the most intense silence I have ever heard. Absolutely delightful.

There are some things we found out that are good to know before you go with horses. First of all, we had hoped to camp out in the backcountry a night or two, but soon found out it was impossible to get the horses down to the river for a drink except in a very few number of places. The river banks are steep and impossible to get down for horses. The good news is you can hobble them and they have infinite grass to eat, but there's no place to securely tie them up for the night. And there's no shade. Anywhere.

The biggest unexpected problem was NOSEFLIES. We don't have them, so had no experience. During the heat of the day they literally drove some of our horses crazy, rubbing their noses in the dirt and striking out with their front feet. We couldn't even ride, they were so miserable. We coated their noses with flyspray, but it didn't seem to help. Apparently a roll on works better. That is the biggest downer about riding that we found. Early morning and evening were perfect.