Horse of action: Riding options plentiful around Las Vegas Valley

Tuesday, March 5, 2002 | 8:12 a.m.

Four college co-eds from the University of Houston on Sunday went to Red Rock Canyon to climb rocks, and ended up climbing onto the backs of horses for a close-up view of one of the most scenic spots in the Las Vegas Valley.

"I love horseback riding," Giovanna Fonseca, 23, said.

"There aren't any places in Houston to ride," Cynthia Diaz, 22, said. 'You have to get way out of the city."

Fonseca and Diaz, with 22-year-old Adriana Holguin and 27-year-old Darlene Elizondo, are spending spring break in Las Vegas.

While in town they are enjoying the gambling and other amenities that make Las Vegas famous, but decided they would also take advantage of activities in which most tourists don't participate.

By abandoning the masses of tourists on the Strip and the din of slot machines in the casinos, they discovered the peace and quiet of Red Rock Canyon from astride horses guided by a wrangler from Silver State Old West Tours.

Mark Sekulich, head wrangler (that's "operations manager" to city folk) for Silver State, says the majority of his customers are tourists, although the number of locals seeking happy trails is on the rise.

"I think a lot of (tourists) see how much money they have left in their pocket after a weekend of gambling and say, Hey, let's go riding,'" Sekulich said.

Silver State is one of a half-dozen companies between Sandy Valley, 45 miles south of Las Vegas, to Mount Charleston, 45 miles north, that offer horseback rides through the colorful desert of Southern Nevada.

Among the more prominent outfits, in addition to Silver State, are Cowboy Trail Rides and Sandy Valley Ranch.

Silver State is on Bureau of Land Management property in the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, where the company's Wild West setting of canvas tents, corrals, stagecoaches and wagons are framed by colorful cliffs and canyons.

To reach the camp it is necessary to pass through the toll booth at the entrance of Spring Mountain Ranch State Park on State Route 159 (20 miles west of Las Vegas). Fees are collected from tourists driving through the conservation area, but Silver State customers are not required to pay the toll.

The riding camp is about 200 yards from the toll booth. Sekulich said the company has had a lease with the BLM for almost 10 years, and all rides are guided by one or more wranglers.

Sight for sore eyes

Joy Shirey, one of three riders who lead tours, has been with the outfit a couple of months and is still awestruck by the view of the surrounding area in the canyons around Potato Hill.

"The first time I made the ride I took four rolls of film," Shire said.

A stagecoach ride is available for folks who don't want to ride horseback.

"The most fun I ever had out here was when 85 Japanese tourists came out," Sekulich said.

The tourists were clad in chaps, 10-gallon hats and other cowboy attire that they had purchased at a popular western-wear store in Tokyo.

"They really like the Old West atmosphere," Sekulich said.

The tourists sat around campfires singing songs and roasting marshmallows.

"I couldn't understand them because they sang in Japanese," Sekulich said.

Most owners of riding stables say tourists are their primary customers, with locals accounting for about 25-40 percent of their business.

Cowboy Trail Rides is about five miles north of Silver State Old West Tours, across from the Red Rock Canyon scenic outlook on State Route 159.

Georgie Sage, sales manager and wife of Jim Sage (one of the company's owners), said rides are offered at Red Rock Canyon and Mount Charleston.

Sage describes the Red Rock Canyon rides as among the most awe-inspiring in the area.

"It's layered with colors, just like the Grand Canyon."

There are a lot of volcanic and geologic formations, caves and other awesome sites to view, she said. The rides follow natural trails created by wild burros.

During the summer, the hottest part of the year in the valley, Red Rock stables will be closed and the horses taken to Mount Charleston.

"It's so hot (at Red Rock) nobody comes, and Mount Charleston is so gorgeous," Sage said.

A Sandy ride

Las Vegas businesswoman Marilyn Gubler found herself at age 50 "burned out" on the business world and decided to pursue a lifelong ambition of creating a place where folks could go to experience the Wild West.

"Horses have always been a part of my life," said the 60-year-old Gubler, whose parents came to Las Vegas in 1939 to start the town's first radio station, KENO 1460-AM.

She said her parents bought horses when she was a child and learned to ride early.

"One of my very earliest memories is riding on (a horse named) Major behind my mom and holding on for dear life to her fluffy gray sweater," Gubler recalled. "I've had a lot of different careers, but horses have always been a part of my life."

Gubler graduated from Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., taught school for eight years, became a political consultant and a government affairs specialist, a lobbyist and activist for the Republican Party (serving as chairman for the county and state GOP and on the Republican National Committee).

Along the way Gubler operated a number of businesses.

"When I hit 50, I got burned out from the rat race. It just wasn't fun anymore," Gubler said. "It was time for a change, but it took me five years to figure out what I really wanted to do.

"Then, one day I drove over Columbia Pass into Sandy Valley and I knew this was it. The whole place evoked the western spirit of my childhood."

Five years ago she bought 110 acres of mesquite-covered desert range land and started Sandy Valley Ranch, about 45 miles south of Las Vegas.

"People need to know what the West is all about," Gubler said. "I'm 45 minutes and 100 years from the Strip."

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