A group makes their way down a trail while participating in a guided trail ride together at the Sunriver Stables.

Bend resident Kim McCarrel is one the Northwest’s experts on horse riding trails.

She’s penned six books on the topic — where to ride guides for Oregon and southwest Washington — and when people plan to bring their horses to Central Oregon, she’s often the first call they make.

“Riding Central Oregon Horse Trails” is by far her bestselling book, which makes sense, because according to the author, Central Oregon is the best area in the state to saddle up a horse and gallop through the diverse landscape.

The U.S. Forest Service lists more than 100 horse riding areas with over 1,800 miles of trails throughout the Deschutes National Forest and Bureau of Land Management lands.

“People contact me all the time telling me they are moving to Central Oregon just for the trail riding,” said McCarrel, who has been mapping and writing about trails and horse camps since 2002. “Central Oregon has the best trail riding in the state, and the most trails in the state. It is an amazing place to own a horse. People in Central Oregon have it really good.”

“I tell my friends from the (Willamette) Valley, that there are 14 horse camps within an hour and 15 minutes from my house,” she added. “And they just about turn inside out because there are so many opportunities here.”

There is no trail that McCarrel has not explored with either her Missouri foxtrot, Brodie, or Tennessee walker, Tex. While some of her favorite trails in the Badlands Wilderness (a great winter area due to the soft sand, McCarrel said), Broken Top loop, and Peterson Ridge (where horse and mountain biking trails are separate). But her favorite trail is whichever one she is riding on a given day.

“I like to go different places every time, I like the variety,” McCarrel said. “The places I want to go in the winter are not the places that I want to go in the summer.”

One of the main draws to horseback riding in Central Oregon is that it is available year-round, McCarrel said. And it is the extended riding season that led to Brian Thomas relocating from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where there are harsh winters and short riding seasons, to Central Oregon seven years ago to give guided tours around Smith Rock.

“There is just way more opportunities for trail riding and horse programs that can go longer than two or three months like in Wyoming,” Thomas said. “When the weather gets warm, people start calling (for reservations). In the fall, we usually go until the weather turns.”

Riding horses has been especially popular at Smith Rock Trail Rides the past couple months. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more people are seeking outdoor activities, and horseback riding naturally social distances one rider from another.

At Smith Rock Trail Rides, where the trail winds along the Crooked River Canyon, they are having to turn people away because reservations are filling up.

“We are seeing people who never considered trying horseback riding before just wanting to get outside and wanting to try something different,” said Thomas, who has been a professional horseman for more than 20 years. “With the horse business, for us we are small, we can do this very easily. We only take four riders at a time and we are outdoors the whole time. People are comfortable with that and are just excited to try something new.”

Horseback riding is just another way for riders to take in the stunning scenery of all parts of Central Oregon.

Thomas said, “We’ve never had a complaint about the scenery.”