Horses shake off the chill of an early October Saturday morning as the rising sun clears the treetops at the Nebraska National Forest west of Halsey.

Stirring from RVs, livestock trailers and the backseats of four-wheel drive pickups, groggy horse enthusiasts pitch hay to their four-legged rides. The Nebraska 4-H Foundation Trail Ride is about to begin, and these stallions, mares and ponies require fuel. Only after their animals are fed and watered will cowboys and cowgirls gather near windmill No. 25 to warm up with coffee and donuts. Conversations pick up where they left off last year.

The annual trail ride draws horse lovers from across Nebraska and surrounding states to the largest hand-planted forest in the U.S. for a weekend of fellowship, friendship and horseback exploration. For riders who have been coming to the event for years, the gathering is as much about spending time with friends, family and cherished animals as it is the ride.

A megaphone crackles to life, joining the chorus of the creaking windmill, neighing nags and breeze blowing through the pines. Only about a quarter of the forest’s 90,000 acres is covered with trees. The rest is Sandhills prairie between the Middle Loup River and Dismal River, cattle and 230 windmills. Riders will explore the rolling terrain this weekend if former University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension educator Dewey Teel can get them to stop talking for a moment to go over announcements and rules. Silence comes to the coteau, and hats come off as The Star-Spangled Banner begins playing.

The speaker malfunctioned while playing the same recording at last year’s ride. At that point, everyone started singing and never missed a beat, even without music, Teel said. “That’s the kind of Americans these people are.”

After saluting the sponsors who provided fence panels, weed-free hay, port-a-potties, and steak for tonight’s supper, riders saddle up, unhitch their mounts and get in line. The shifting, baby powder-like sand of Road 203 South is why the narrow route is marked for four-wheel drive vehicles only. The horses’ wide hooves offer plenty of traction. Thedford rancher Terri Licking knows that firsthand.

“I tried using a four-wheeler once. Took me an hour to do what would have taken 20 minutes on horseback,” Licking said.

Excited hoots and “yee-haws” erupt as the cowboy convoy of 70 riders heads out of the valley, off-road and into the forest. The pine needle-covered sand renders hoofbeats nearly silent. White-tailed and mule deer slip into the long shadows of the trees. Friends old and new catch up. Even the trusty ranch horses seem to form bonds.

Mothers, fathers, children, friends and strangers settle into their saddles for the two-hour ride. None have experienced this exact route before – an unplowed forest frontier under the pines. Dawson County Extension educator Bruce Treffer, now retired, rides drag to make sure nobody falls behind.

He remembers the year a woman was having trouble with her horse and the riders unintentionally rode on without her. Before she knew it, the woman found herself lost. She was relieved but not very happy when a group of ATV riders found her hours later at dark. Another time, a 14-year-old girl was riding west of the windmill when an overhanging tree limb caught her hair and yanked her off her horse.

Dr. Sue Staab hasn’t been thrown yet. The quarter horse breeder and Valley County resident shows up as a rider but always ends up working her real job as a veterinarian. At previous rides she has treated horses for colic and cared for a mare that scratched an eye on a cedar tree branch. Years of experience have taught her to bring medicine, bandages and wraps. She was unprepared when things went terribly wrong in 2012.

Most of the riders were having supper miles away at the Nebraska State 4-H Camp when Staab heard the sickening thud of horses dropping to the ground. Alone and enveloped by the inky darkness of nighttime in the Sandhills, she worked to save the animals.

The horses were “tying up,” a sometimes-fatal condition that Staab compares to a Charlie horse, except that it causes muscle contractions throughout the body. She theorizes that the sand was so deep that year that horses were having to work harder than usual to move. Many were not in shape for the harsh conditions.

Staab ran out of medicine after treating nine animals. Then she worked to comfort the others. “As far as I know, they all made it,” she said. “The following Monday I received flowers from a Missouri rider along with a note that said, ‘Thanks for saving my horse, Mooney.’ ”

After enjoyable but uneventful morning and afternoon trail rides, cowboys and cowgirls with an appetite for Nebraska beef head to the camp’s Eppley Lodge for strip loins steaks.

Ranchers who graze their herds in the forest’s federal pastures, and other neighbors, are invited to the supper and celebration. In addition to event fees, the camp raises valuable operating funds through a silent auction. Cowboy hats, ropes, bridles, spurs, Western art, wine and a magazine subscription are up for grabs. Cowgirl Dawn Allen bids on nearly every item.

Allen was a 15-year-old 4-H summer camper here when she snagged her first boyfriend 50 years ago. The young couple  broke up when she met her second love interest at camp the following summer. Love comes and goes, except for when it comes to Allen’s favorite color. The bold hues of her saddle, tack and trim on her truck reveals why the Cairo resident is known as The Pink Lady. Her horse is named Blue.

This colorful character raises wolf dogs and rescues raccoons. She has lots of love for the Sandhills, too.

She believes that Sandhills’ fresh air and the smell of the pines stay with forest visitors. “Last night the skies cleared, and the stars were so bright,” Allen said. “This is Halsey. It is magic, timeless and unforgettable.”   

Memories from past trail rides play through a projector slideshow as trail riders eat supper. They pause in mid-chew whenever one man’s image appears on the screen.

According to trail boss Teel, Gary Stauffer was the creator of the trail ride that first explored these hills in 1998. Together they planned the routes, always coming up with new ways through the yuccas and pines. “Gary and I rode thousands of miles together,” Teel said. “We’d ride for 10 hours laying out a 2-hour trail.”

Stauffer died of complications from ALS one week before the 2018 trail ride. Meadowlarks called as Teel led Stauffer’s riderless horse out of the gate to honor his friend.

“There wasn’t a dry eye out here,” Teel said. “Having our friends and family here made for quite a moment.”

Stauffer’s daughter, Angela Sinclair, blazed many trails with her father and Teel. She spent her family summer vacations at the forest. Her relatives still treat trail ride weekend as an annual family reunion, in recent years joined by her own children. Sinclair used last year’s ride as the special occasion to announce the coming of her fourth child, then she sat her 1-year-old son, Abram, in the saddle for his first horse ride ever on her father’s horse.

“These hills, ponds and rivers, this is one of the most beautiful places in Nebraska,” Sinclair said through tears. “You have to be a real horseman to enjoy this – and Dad was.”

Greg Eickhoff rode in the first 10 trail rides before work got in the way. Retiring five years ago got the Tilden resident back in the saddle for the event. Eickhoff showed up in 2020 with three trailers, six horses, and his daughter, Julia Suckstorf. Also along was his wife, Rita, and three of the couple’s grandchildren.

Rita doesn’t ride but looks forward to her weekend at Halsey when she relaxes at camp and tunes in the Cornhusker football game after riders saddle up.

Her husband gets in line for the afternoon ride. The heat of mid-day dissipates in the shade of the towering pines. Riding alongside is the Eickhoff’s 7-year-old granddaughter, Ellie. Seeing the young cowgirl take the reins causes a wide smile to gallop across her grandfather’s face. Her shiny leather saddle is the first new one he ever bought. He gets a charge out of his friends, family and animals coming together in the Sandhills and its manmade oasis of trees.

“This trail ride is just as much about the people who take part as it is the horses and hills,” Eickhoff said. “The forest at Halsey feels like home to me, and there is nothing else like grabbing the reins and riding off through the trees.”