Bridle Ridge Horse Camp - Custer, South Dakota

 We continue our circle around Custer, South Dakota and move on to Bridle Ridge Horse Camp. As we were leaving Broken Arrow, I said good-bye to one of the owners. As I was walking away, I overheard him saying to one of the other guests - "those folks were excellent guests. they are welcome back anytime."

That's always nice to hear.

On our way out of Broken Arrow, a couple of campers pointed out one of our tires was deflated. Luckily, we had purchased an air compressor from Harbor Freight. We were able to use it to re-inflate the tire. It looked like it was holding air and since it was only about 30 minutes between campgrounds, we risked it and drove to Bridle Ridge.

To get to Bridle Ridge, you have to drive down about six miles of dirt road. It is well maintained, so other than the dust, it is not too bad. It seems some of the property owners water down sections of the road to keep the dust down and out of their houses.

This campground is fairly new, but it is in tip top shape, very clean and well maintained. 

About half the sites are pull-through and half are back in.

We started our stay at a back in site. On our last night, we were moved to a pull-through site. All the sites are full hook-up. All the sites have picnic tables and fire rings.

There is no wifi and I had no cell service, but Ari had cell service on Verizon, so we used his phone as a hot spot during our stay.

Unlike Broken Arrow, there is no laundry, no showers, no playground, and no camp store.

My understanding is that the Bridle Ridge owner continues to add amenities, so these may be available in the future.

The horses were initially put in the barn and later moved to outside pipe corrals. The stalls are 10 ft x 10 ft, so on the small side. 

The owner requires you to provide bedding for the horses. You can either bring your own or purchase a bag for $10 from her.

She has very cute little chalkboard signs next to each stall where you write the horse's name, the owner's name, and the campsite number for the owner. 

You are not allowed to tack up at your trailer, so you need to bring your tack into the barn and use the saddle rack and pallet to store your tack and feed.

There are hitching posts next to the barn as well as mounting blocks to help you get ready to ride.

Signs are posted on each stall with the barn rules.

There is a decent sized round pen to use for turn out or to exercise your horse.

The trails were nice, but nothing special. Not a lot of shade, not well marked.

Apparently, the Bridle Ridge owner has not worked with the forest service properly with regards to trails.

According to the owner where we currently are staying, in order to be allowed to mark trails and take guests on guided rides, you have to take a two hour seminar with the forest service. They will then assign you a trail you can mark and use for guided trail rides. Every two years you can apply for an additional trail. 

Ari drove to Rapid City the day after we switched campgrounds. That was the closest town with a tire repair place. It turned out that the tire was fine - the wheel had cracked, so we had to replace the wheel. So, we now have one odd wheel on our truck that looks different. We are descending into Hillbilly territory.

Mount Rushmore is less than 30 minutes from Bridle Ridge, so Ari insisted we stop and take a look at the monument. We didn't visit the museum or any of the shops around the monument because we wanted to save some stuff to do when our sons are visiting with us in a couple of weeks.

It was well into the 90s, so we decided to take a day off from riding and visit nearby Keystone. Keystone is a great place to visit and spend an afternoon. There are lots of little shops and places to eat. Ari and I shared an Indian taco from a little cafe. It was quite good and enough for 2-3 people.

There is a saloon on the boardwalk where they provide a free Western comedy show. It is actually quite good and the drinks served are decent and not too overpriced.

The Bridle Ridge owner had us move our horses into the pipe corrals located at the back of the campground. The corrals were filthy and the wheelbarrow was full. So, Ari had to dump the wheelbarrow and clean the corrals before we could put the horses in.

This is how the corrals looked when we left.

I complained to the owner that the corrals were filthy and she had promised me when she told us we had to move that the corrals would be clean for us. I told her since we had to clean them, she owed us the $20 she would have charged the previous occupants for cleaning the corrals. I assumed she would charge those folks for the cleaning.

We also cleaned the stalls in the barn when we took our horses out. When we clean, we remove any manure and any soiled bedding, but we leave the clean bedding and loose dirt.

So, she texted us this picture of a wheelbarrow filled with loose dirt and clean bedding, complaining of the condition of the barn stalls. She explained that she expects people to clean "down to the dirt". More than one person pointed out that this basically means the next person needs to put down bedding. But several equestrians noted that they appreciate the extra time and attention she puts in to ensure nobody's horse gets sick.

On our last night, we were asked to move to a pull-through campsite. This was annoying, but it was explained I had changed the dates for our reservation, so she needed us to move to make it work for other campers coming in. I thought about just pulling out and going to our next stop a day early, but we had a guy coming to make repairs on our trailer and she was not going to refund us for the night's stay.

We complained to the trailer repair guy that it bugged us when the wind blew our LQ door entrance, so he suggested we use a bungie cord to keep it from moving. Problem solved and for two engineers we feel pretty dumb.

Someone had said to us that the water pressure at the camp was pretty poor. We didn't experience that at the back-in site the first three nights we were there, but when we showered at the pull-though campsite, there was a marked difference in water pressure. Ari posited that the reason was that the pull-through site was located uphill from the previous site and the water pressure dropped as it went uphill.

Someone suggested that we could solve that by just turning on the water pump and once again I felt a bit dumb.

When we went into Keystone, we stopped at this place to purchase some Holy Terror fudge. There are several shops that use the Holy Terror name because there is a local mine called the Holy Terror.

The story of how the mine got it's name is pretty cute.

The guy who filed the claim on the mine was named William Franklin and his wife was named Jenny. William spent most of his time hanging out in the saloons in Keystone and Jenny would drag him home and he would laugh as she was dragging him home and say "Ain't she a Holy Terror, boys?"

Well, he discovered the mine and he went to file the claim and his friends advised him to name the mine after his wife, which was a common thing to do.

He was late coming back from filing the claim and Jenny got mad at him and was hollering at him about coming home so late. He told her he had named the mine after her, so she shouldn't be so mad.

Later she found out that he named the mine the Holy Terror Mine.

Normally, I post our experiences at each campsite in a Facebook group for Horse Trails and Camping. The Bridle Ridge owner got really upset about my description of my experience. She basically started a flame war with me and then had a couple of her friends post rave reviews in the group on her campsite.

She said that we left the barn stalls filthy and, as I saw it, this was a subjective thing. We had cleaned out all the manure and soiled bedding, but we had not cleaned the stalls "down to the dirt". This is the first place we have stayed with that requirement. This is the first place we have stayed where we were required to provide bedding for our horses. So, it was definitely a learning experience for us. She also disputed the water pressure issue. Frankly, I did not think it was that big a deal, especially since there is an easy fix of just turning on the water pump. So, would I recommend people stay at Bridle Ridge? Personally we liked Broken Arrow a lot better. It had more amenities and the trails were nicer. But, that doesn't mean you shouldn't go to Bridle Ridge. There are so many horse camps in this area - which is why I wanted to try as many as I could - just to see what each one is like.

Next time we go to a feed store, we plan to buy a couple of bags of bedding in case the occasion arises again where we are required to put bedding in the stalls. Normally, we don't use bedding with our horses, because it is a pain to clean the stalls.

We have moved on from Bridle Ridge and are now at Hell Canyon Horse Camp. Everyone we have spoken to so far appears to be sane. Maybe it is us and we just drive people nuts. We shall see what it is like when we leave.