The Old Spanish Trail, which crosses several western states has been called the longest, crookedest, and most ornery pack trail in the history of the United States. In December 2002 due to the efforts of Representative Scott McInnis and Senator Ben Campbell of Colorado, the old trail officially became a National Historic Trail.

The trail was originally developed by the Spanish in the 1820’s to connect the two isolated outpost of Santa Fe and Los Angeles. When we say Spanish Trail we naturally think of just one trail, but there were several forks and branches, although they all started at Santa Fe and went north.

Our decision to be a part of retracing these old trails started in the spring of 2002 when we received a call from Willard Forman in Evergreen, CO. A mutual friend had told Willard, an experienced outfitter and trail ride promoter who owns a company called Summit Trails, about me. He was putting together an authentic wagon train (no rubber tires) to retrace a part of the Cherokee Trail in Wyoming and needed wagons. Our mutual friend had told him we had several iron-tired wagons, restored wagons, and even sold among other things, wagon parts on our web site www.cowboycooking.com .It didn’t’ take any arm twisting on Willard’s part to get my attention as doing something like that had long been a dream of ours. So to make a whole other experience short, with my son Cody Elliott we did 100 miles on the Cherokee Trail in June of last year. In the fall of that year Willard started looking into retracing the Old Spanish Trail and that became a reality in July of this year. The plan is to do 80 to 100 miles each year retracing the trail from Santa Fe to Los Angeles. We decided to keep a diary of this unique experience, which now follows.

Our two Percheron Mules, Pete and Jake have had a life of ease for the past twelve months so this is the day they go into training for the Spanish Trail. With “step haw Pete” the easy life comes to an end, but not before a little rearing, kicking, and protesting. With some professional negotiating across Pete’s rear he quickly decides to cooperate and Jake agrees. We go five miles today.

Pete decides the better part of valor is just to go along with the program. We do 5 1/2 miles.

Were plodding along and Jake suddenly explodes from some real or imaginary threat to this life. I get them pulled up; Cody bails out of the wagon, grabs their bridles and in two minutes Jake is back to normal. Pete the nervous one of the two anyway takes a little longer to decide he’s not fixing to die. We do 6 ½ miles.

Fairly uneventful. The boys have decided it’s no longer beneficial to protest and have settled in. We do 8 ½ miles.

Another uneventful day. We do 8 ½ miles. Let me say here that our training is in the hills and high humidity of AR, so we think they will be in good shape for the dry climate and fairly level ground Willard has described to us.

10 ½ miles. Humidity, really bad. Pete always sweats more than Jake. I think Cody and I sweated more than the mules.

Another 10 ½ miles. This is getting boring, as we have laid out a 2 mile circle on the ranch so we can keep track of the distance. Ready to go down the trail!

Picked up two 50 lb bags of Purena Horse Chow 100, that we special ordered. The trail crosses BLM land and we aren’t allowed to feed hay or any feed not certified to be seed free. The BLM doesn’t want any foreign plants introduced to the trail.

The boys have had a week off due to our busy schedules but today we get the wagon in our shop loaded and everything packed. We will be taking our John Deere wagon that we have restored to like new condition. I’ll be pulling the wagon with my Ford diesel and Cody will be pulling the horse trailer with his Dodge diesel. We have a big tack room in the horse trailer where we will carry our suitcases, bagged hay, water and feed for the mules. We have all our camping supplies, tack, water barrel, etc. in the wagon bed which we cover with a tarp.

5:30 am, we roll out in the dark headed for Amarillo, TX where we will spend the night. My wife Cheryle, daughter Jamie, and future son in law Brian Ward, are going with us. Brian will ride a horse on the trail. Cheryle and Jamie are meeting our good friend Red Steagall’s wife, Gail in Amarillo. Cheryle and Gail go all the way back to High School when they were both cheerleaders together. Gail will drive with us to New Mexico where they will spend the week “Power Shopping” as Gail says. We board the mules at a very nice facility, Tascosa Stables.

On the road again headed for Ojo Caliente, NM, the meeting point. Ojo is a mineral spa thousands of years old first discovered by the Indians. The hot water comes from an old volcano. The Spanish Trail went right by the springs.

The wagons and riders are all in by late afternoon. We will be joined on our ride by Jim Campbell of Horsemans Radio weekly program. There will be five wagons and approximately 30 horseback riders. The chuckwagon, which is hauled from camp to camp on a trailer is set up and serves some great barbque. Everyone is starting to get acquainted. We discovered were not the only ones from AR as we meet Phil Wyrick from Little Rock. Phil, a former state representative and now head of the Livestock and poultry Commission, gave us an AR flag which we proudly mount on our wagon. Making new friends like Phil and getting to spend a few days on the trail with them is a big part of what makes this such a great experience. Noted historian and writer, Ron Kessler gives a talk about the Spanish Trail. I purchased one of his books about the trail.

Wagons ho! 8 am we roll out of Ojo and down the highway for about a mile before dropping off onto Comanche Canyon. The original trail went down the dry creek bed of the Canyon. The horses and mules are all about as excited as the teamsters and riders but it doesn’t take long for everyone to settle in. The creek bottom is sandy and the wagons sink several inches into the sand making the teams all have to dig in. We make frequent stops to rest them. The temperature in the Canyon, someone said is 104 degrees. As we travel through the canyon I think about Ron Kessler’s talk the night before about how the Commanche’s took prisoners into the canyon and tortured them to death. What an experience to travel the route used 100’s of years ago by those early Spanish traders. We break for lunch and to water the horses and mules. The trucks meet us with water, sandwiches, and a portable toilet. I think about how those early travelers didn’t have this luxury. Brian has a GPS unit and is calculating the distance as we travel. At the end of the first day, he says we went about 24 miles. This first day was longer than usual because the BLM wouldn’t allow any camping till we arrived at their designated campsite.

Because of the unusually long and difficult first day, Willard announces that we will lay over to rest the teams. It reminds me of the old journals I’ve read. In those days they used the word “recruit” to mean rest. They could lay over to” recruit the stock”. I think there were a lot of sore rear ends that needed to be “recruited”. It was a good time to get to know each other a little better. Some of the riders decided to borrow a truck and goto town to pick up a few items they had forgotten to bring along.

At breakfast the ladies are all laughing about last night. It seems the shouting I heard was John, one of the teamsters. John’s horses got out of the corral and headed towards the water truck. John heard them and started after them in his boots and underwear, all the time loudly proclaiming the terrible punishment they were going to experience when he got his hands on them. The ladies in camp hearing John’s expletives, unzipped their tents and looked out. They said John’s white legs and butt shining in the moonlight as he ran down the road was hilarious. John just smiled as the ladies recounted the event. Breakfast is usually at 6:45, which gives the teamsters plenty of time to get ready for the trail. We carry our own two- man tent so we have to strike the tent, take down the portable corral, and harness the mules. It takes us 20 minutes to harness but we take our time. We tie the mules to the wagon and when it’s time to go, we ground drive them to the tongue, step Pete over, and hook them up. After lunch Brian and Cody trade places. Brian drives the wagon and Cody rides Brian’s horse. Cody rides up on a big rattlesnake and several other people see them today. When we camp I tell Cody we need to make sure the tent fly is zipped all the way. I definitely don’t want to share my bedroll with a rattlesnake. I have found mules to be more aware of their surroundings than a horse. When those big ears go up you may not ever know what’s out there but I can assure you it’s something. I looked out at the corral and Pete is intently starring east across the sagebrush. I holler and tell everyone to look at my mule that Indians are slipping up on us. Everyone had a good laugh about that and five minutes later a pickup appears at the horizon. We’re entertained each night by a group who ride with us called Cowboy Celtic. Everyone really enjoyed them. I forgot to carry my flashlight to the chuck wagon where we meet so we had to walk back to the tent in the dark. I imagine huge rattlesnakes on the road, but fortunately none appear.

Were off again on the final day. It’s fairly uneventful until about a mile from the end of the ride. Jake, the near mule, (left side) is plodding along minding his own business, probably thinking about his green pasture back home when all of a sudden he explodes. I thought he was going to climb on Pete’s back. Pete, the nervous one anyway, thinking a grizzly bear must be inches from his throat explodes also. Both mules bolt to the right and start up a steep very rocky ledge. Cody gets them stopped as I eject from the wagon seat like a fighter pilot and in two steps have them by the bridle. Brian seeing the action from behind comes on a dead run but by the time he dismounts everything is under control. He later laughlingly said when he arrived I had them by the bridle and wasn’t exactly telling them how much I loved ‘em. We think Jake either smelled or heard a rattlesnake. There’s an old cowboy saying that “only cattle know why they stampede and they ain’t talking”. Only Jake knows what scared him and so far he hasn’t told us. We load up and drive north into Alamosa, CO. where we board the mules and spend the night. The girls have a motel and are waiting on us anxious to show off all the beautiful turquoise jewelry they got such great buys on. Real beds are sure nice.

Uneventful trip back to Amarillo, where we board the mules at Tascosa Stables again and spend the night.

After a 12 hour drive we’re back home & Pete runs around the pasture a couple of times while Jake rolls. Everyone’s dead tired so we decide to unload tomorrow.

Cody and Brian still tired so it must not all be old age on my part. Retracing the Spanish Trail is a unique experience that few people will ever get to experience. We feel fortunate to have been a part of it and are already looking forward to next year.