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Shane_Currie

Saddleback Ranch is best known as the location for the TV reality program "Rich Kids Cattle Drive". It is a 7,200 acre real, working cattle ranch, run by the Lacovetto family, located in the heart of the Rocky Mountains approx 20 minutes from Steamboat Springs.

The ranch runs numerous activities, including Snowmobile tours, cattle feeding sleigh rides, horseback riding and dinner sleigh rides.  We decided to try the snowmobiling at $85 for the driver and $45 for a passenger.

The tours are guided and last for approx 2 hours.  They take in some fantastic views of Mt.Werner, the Flattops and the Sleeping Giant as you wind you way through meadows, up hills and down narrow tree lined trails. The tour culminates in an all out "Free For All' in a back paddock, where riders are free to go as fast as they can around the meadow.

We rode 2004 model 2 person Polaris Snowmobiles which were very well maintained; I especially liked the hand warmer feature. Flat out in a straight line, with one rider, they go about 85km/h, but it seems a lot faster when you're actually doing it. This kind of speed makes cornering tricky. If you just turn the handlebars you will turn, but it'll take awhile. You really need to lean into the corners to get them to turn quickly. So hanging off the side of a snowmobile, doing 85km/h, bouncing over rough ground, trying to turn a sharp corner really gets the heart pumping!

The tour begins with an orientation lap of a nearby paddock.  This allows everyone to get used to turning, stopping etc, before we hit the trail.  The tour then heads out into the back country, slowly at first and speeds up as everyone gets more and more comfortable with their machine.  Unfortunately you can only go as fast as the slowest person, and in our tour that person happened to be directly behind the guide. So it wasn't unusual for the guide to pull 200-300m ahead only to have to stop and wait for us; this got a little frustrating. The scenery is pretty spectacular though.

At the end of the tour we headed back to the barn for a hot cup of chocolate and a cookie.

Picture: Flat Out Racing