Dating in the Rural West

Editor’s Note: This piece was originally published in the Washington Post. For those of you hitting a paywall, here you go! Maddy Butcher is the author of “Horse Head: Brain Science & Other Insights” and director of Buck the Trend, a mental health forum for […]

The Wanigan and What We Carry

Editor’s Note: A version of this essay was published in the Washington Post. Maddy Butcher writes: Few friends aren’t going through something now. It might be relationship struggles or tough times at work. It is often a mental health deal. Sometimes it’s a blend of […]

Getting Out is Not Enough

Editor’s Note: An abridged version of this opinion piece was published in the Colorado Sun. Two dogs, now gone, showed me how to consider the outdoors. Belle appreciated the landscape as a whole. She stopped, not just at the summit, but to tend to sounds […]

Necessary Change: Simple, Not Easy

Each year on behalf of Cayuse Communications and the Best Horse Practices Summit, I travel to Denver for the Outdoor Retailer (OR), an enormous schoomze-fest at the Colorado Convention Center. It’s run by the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), a 4,000-member trade group for outdoor recreation, […]

A Visit to the OR

Last week, we traveled to the Outdoor Retailer at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver. It’s the outdoor industry’s largest event for buyers, media, and others to gather, place orders, and show off new products. More importantly, it’s an opportunity for the outdoor recreational community […]

To Drift, Not To Push

Recently, I traveled to California for a Rancher-to-Rancher (R2R) field day, an event to address drought resilience. R2R team member, Kent Reeves, a horseman and friend, cajoled me into attending. Thanks, Kent! R2R is a network funded by the Regenerative Agriculture Foundation through the Soil […]

OR Highlights

Recently, we traveled to Denver to visit with folks at the Outdoor Retailer. Held at the Colorado Convention Center, the event attracts some 6,000 vendors and over 30,000 attendees. Yikes! Think Mall-on-Christmas-Eve frenzy. The OR, as it is widely known, gives us a chance to […]

Report from the Outdoor Retailer – What We Liked

Imagine you’re at a mall on the weekend before Christmas and all the crowds around you are fit, driven, and over-caffeinated. That’s pretty much the scene at the Outdoor Retailer at the Salt Palace convention center. Thousands of vendors and tens of thousands of buyers, […]

Outdoor Retailer Bestuvs

Rattlesnake Avoidance Pays Off

Here in Colorado, one niggling impediment to carefree hiking and riding is the prospect of rattlesnake encounters. The possibility of harm and crisis – for horses, humans, and dogs – is enough to motivate several preventative strategies. There’s not a lot we can do for […]