Cook Forest Scenic Horse Campground Trip

It’s been a long time in writing this because this was one of those trips that wasn’t the fun time I had envisioned. My horse got hurt and what was supposed to be a vacation, wasn’t. It was one of those rainy summers in Pennsylvania and that meant muddy trails. How muddy was an eye opener to us.

Let’s start at the beginning. It was a bright, sunny day–we hitched up the RV and the horse trailer, loaded the horses and took off on our July 2012 summer vacation. We had 2-meter radios (we’re both licensed ham radio operators) so we could talk to one another and relay info. My truck was having an issue with some of the long mountain climbs on Route 80 that could go on for miles, and my husband was having to slow down to let me catch up so either one of us were happy campers. After 5.5 hours we got to the campground after mistakenly following the GPS and not the listed directions. It had taken us down a few back roads and through what looked like a dirt road even though the GPS had ‘dirt roads’ omitted from the route. Go figure. Follow the listed directions on their website and you won’t have any problems. http://www.patrailride.com/

We arrived and there was no one in the office. Seems it was their son’s wedding and no one was around at all, even though we had reservations. Finally after an hour of standing around, some of the other guests told us to just take a spot and set up, which we did. We really wanted to get our horses out of that trailer! There are electric and water sites, the dump station is around the other side of the barn which made it a bit challenging for some of those with long horse trailers with LQs to get to.

We set up, got the horses settled and talked to some of the other guests who were now coming back from their rides. We got a map and were told that some of the trails were muddy. They have an indoor arena surrounded by box stalls, and an outdoor arena. The trails start behind the barn with the indoor arena and the outdoor arena. There’s also a main barn where they serve lunches and dinners for special events and the food is delicious. They also had a band one night and fun was had by all.

The first day was warm and sunny and we hurried through breakfast, eager to tack up and hit the trails. We picked a trail that some of the guests said wasn’t too muddy and the trail was pretty. We were enjoying the beauty of the trail but one downhill slope was so muddy the horses sunk up to their chests in mud. That was our first OMG moment. The trails are marked but there are several ‘green’ paint marked trails and they cross each other at several places so it is easy to get lost…which we did. Several times. One time when we got lost we found a road and the GPS on our cell phone alerted us to which direction we needed to go to get back to camp again. My horse, Nugget, slipped on the road, her back left leg slid out behind her and she hurt her stifle badly. We limped back to the campground, fortunately I was wearing my hiking boots because it was a long way back. We gave her Bute and hosed both her & Bandit down because the temps were in the 90’s and humid, both horses were sweating (along with us) and I wanted to get some cold water on her back leg.

We found the trails challenging to say the least. Lots of steep climbs, tons of deep mud and definitely not for the faint-hearted. We had 2 friends who went there at the end of August and had issues with the mud too. It’s very pretty, lots of evergreens and streams. Shoes are a must for the horses – it’s very rocky, though the mud almost sucked the shoes off our horses.

Between Nugget getting hurt, the shoes almost coming off both horses and the weather forecast was rain---for the last 3 days of our vacation, we decided to pack it in and leave early. We met some people who loved the place and go there every year. Would I go again? No, our experience was not a favorable one.