Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

On long-distance horse rides, Nevada’s beauty and hospitality are unveiled

Samantha Szesciorka

Carla Hammonds

Samantha Szesciorka

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It was a blazing day in central Nevada — much hotter than usual for May, it seemed — when long-distance horse rider Samantha Szesciorka came upon a sole paintbrush wildflower while traveling along the California border.

The wildflower, which was the first she’d seen since leaving Las Vegas on horseback earlier that week, was a welcome sign: She had reached the Great Basin.

Szesciorka said the change from the Mojave Desert’s Joshua trees to swaths of sagebrush was sudden as she rode over the hill, watching the landscape “transition” in a way she had never seen before while driving on any of the state’s highways.

“I literally did get to see how Nevada changes between those two desert systems, which is really cool (and), in fact, one of the best memories from this ride,” Szesciorka said. “When you’re driving on the highway, you don’t get to see all that.”

Szesciorka, founder of Nevada Discovery Ride, traveled 550 miles on horseback over 45 days from Red Rock Canyon to Carson City beginning May 1, 2021.

With horses Sage and Fremont — and dog Juniper ­— the trip was conducted on backroads and old trails. She averaged about 15 to 20 miles daily, often leaving early when the sun was rising to avoid the heat.

It wasn’t Szesciorka’s first ride, and she said it definitely won’t be her last.

She stresses that she participates in long riding — and not endurance riding, which is competitive and timed. Long riding, she said, is about the adventure and the call of the trail.

Since 2013, Szesciorka and her four-legged team members have traversed over 1,000 miles of Nevada’s public lands on foot, paw and hoof. They have completed three long-distance rides in the past 10 years, one in 2013, another in 2016 and the most recent in 2021.

The 40-year-old Reno resident first discovered long riding in 2010 after reading an article about a woman who was riding across the United States on horseback. The concept of riding a horse across only public lands and trails was crazy to her at first, she said, even as someone who grew up riding horses competitively.

But she then spent the next three years researching and planning her first ride, one that took her 500 miles from Baker across central Nevada to Reno in about a month. It was all done without any cars, hotel rooms or portable restrooms.

“I just couldn’t stop thinking about (long riding),” Szesciorka said. “I’ve never felt like a particularly brave person — or adventurous person, also, to be fair — but I can plan well and I’m thoughtful about the environment, and I thought, ‘I think I could do this.’ ”

Szesciorka said she learned a lot from that first ride, where she crossed 14 mountain ranges,five state parks and eight Nevada counties with Sage and another dog, Bella.

That first ride Szesciorka “pioneered” is now the official route in Nevada of the American Discovery Trail, a national trail that runs coast-to-coast, Szesciorka said. She was hooked after returning from the 2013 travels, and immediately began planning a longer and more challenging ride.

In 2016, Szesciorka and her companions rode all the way around Nevada in a 1,100-mile trek that started in the geographic center of the state, ran east along her previous route, cut north toward the Idaho border and circled back around to end in Reno. She spent three months alone in the wilderness with Sage, Bella and the occasional curious wild animal, she said.

It doesn’t get lonely, though.

Szesciorka said “it’s therapeutic in a way to just sort of be with yourself that much” and “to think about everything, or think about nothing.”

She also gets help from a team of volunteers — including close friends and family — when she needs supplies, especially on long trips like the one she took in 2021. The latest long-distance ride was planned intentionally by Szesciorka to stop between different cities along the way to Carson City to not only replenish her supplies but get to know the various communities of Nevada.

“I met a lot of amazing people, so many people this time in all these towns that I went through who were just so hospitable,” Szesciorka said. “And I was really touched at how supportive people were, how they opened their houses to us, brought us water (and) gave us food.”

From the tiny mining towns in central Nevada to the booming epicenters at the northern and southern ends of the state, Szesciorka said one similarity between them all was the kindness with which people treated her, Sage and Juniper.

Since the end of her latest trip, Szesciorka has mentored future long riders as an official member of the Long Riders Guild, an invitation-only international organization of equestrian explorers. She even hosted a couple from Germany for several months and taught them how to ride in climates similar to Nevada’s.

Although Szesciorka said she doesn’t know when her next ride will be, the Nevada Discovery Ride team is not done yet and she’s already looking for the next route that will inspire her.

“I love Nevada, and my love of Nevada has only deepened the more I get into it in these ways,” Szesciorka said. “I always tell people that we don’t really know about it because Nevada hides itself, and you have to get off the highway and onto the dirt roads into the backcountry to discover the diversity of the state — from the terrain to the people.”