Butterfield Ranch Desert Horse Glamping in a Cabin!

For the MLK Day three day weekend in mid-January 2014, Josh and I jumped on an opportunity to head out to the desert with the horses for some horse camping at Butterfield Ranch in Anza-Borrego. It was awesome!

View from the ride up the hill from the ranch.

First off, it wasn't camping at all, because we rented a small trailer cabin will full amenities! Hot shower, heat and AC, running water, a bathroom, a kitchen. In horse camping terms, this is the Ritz Carlton. Did I mention a hot shower? We brought along this TV with a DVD/CD player for music and movies. Josh pointed out that our house had a license plate on the back of it, which I thought was pretty cool.

The little cabin in the middle, perfect for two people.

Horse view from the cabin.

The horse corrals are a little ways away (a few hundred feet) from the cabins, so you can still see your horses but you can't hear them at night. The corrals are very large and sandy, so our horses enjoyed laying down and relaxing. There's well water near the corrals that you need a 20-40 foot hose to fill water buckets and it can take a little bit of time due to low water pressure. The low water pressure doesn't allow you to hose your horses off after riding, so we skipped that part, especially since it was cold anyway.

We were the only people there with horses, and they seemed very comfortable. Coming from San Diego, we felt it was colder than they were used to so we blanketed them at night and they thanked us for it. During the day, the weather was perfect, with temperatures in the 70's and plenty of sunshine. Emphasis on the sunshine though, wear sunscreen and sunglasses, we got our lips sun burnt from our first day ride.

The smallest cabin features a living room, kitchen, bathroom and a small bedroom with a queen size bed, but you do need to bring your own linens and pillows. And towels. We forgot towels so Josh's shirt was our bath towel. The shower is standard size, hot and oh-so-wonderful after a long dusty ride! The living room has a cozy love seat and an arm chair with a lamp for reading.

Little kitchen with no oven.

The kitchen features a stove but no oven. I thought this was going to be tricky because I couldn't bring my go-to horse camping lasagna, but instead we brought the crock pot and it was a huge success! This meant I started dinner before we went riding, then came back to a yummy smelling cabin and a hot dinner. I'm going to use this for future camping trips because it took a lot of the work out of the trip. I made the food ahead of time and froze it, then just threw it in the crock pot on low for 5-6 hours.

The first night we did Chicken Chili with all the Fixins (cheese, onions, tortilla chips, cilantro, etc) and the second night we did Spaghetti Sauce in the crock pot and boiled the noodles on the stove top. Spaghetti with meatballs would have been even better. Next time! Dessert was Pioneer Woman's ice cream pie both nights, thanks to the full size freezer on top of the fridge. And happy hour was carrots, apples (get it, we are horse camping after all), salami and goat cheese with crackers. Be sure to bring extra apples and carrots for your horses!

The kitchen has silverware, serving utensils, very limited/small pots and pans, plates, a lighter, microwave, soap and some paper towels. But there was no wine opener, so be sure to bring one! It does not have things like salt and pepper, so it might be smart to throw those in your bag as well, unless your food is already seasoned. I just needed some salt to boil the pasta, but it ended up fine without it. We wished we had brought a candle for ambiance. There are no wine glasses, but there were margarita glasses, which work just as well!

We brought our camp chairs to have happy hour on the porch and sit around the fire. There are fire pits and the general store sells firewood for $5. The general store is great, they have anything you might have forgotten at a reasonable price and a fun selection of DVD's to rent for $2 each. We chose You, Me and Dupree the first night and Mean Girls the second night. Ha. We got a kick out of both of them. There is a TV with a DVD player that you can borrow I believe, ask Doug when you call.

No wine glasses, but these did the job.

Okay, on to the riding! There's a great ride right out the back of Butterfield Ranch! It leads up a nice sandy trail up a slight hill to a rock house, which is a cave with a house built from rocks around it, apparently a ruin from old cattle ranchers. Definitely worth checking out! After that, you can keep going to a mortero field and see some other ranching ruins and interesting things. We rode for an hour and a half and didn't hit the end of the trail. There's a few other trails you could take that split off the main trail to go exploring.

Harley doesn't know quite what to think of the Rock House.

Another ride right out of the ranch is across the street to their 40 acre area that includes some Indian ruins and an old air strip. It's a shorter ride, but fun to explore on horse or by hiking, which is what we did so we could climb up some rock piles and check out the morteros. Really fun and interesting!

Just making some guacamole in this mortero for the big game!

Where's Waldo?

Desert explorer. Note the airstrip behind him.

A ten minute trailer ride takes you to Blair Valley, home of the Indian Pictographs. Although we did not make the 10 mile round-trip journey to the Pictographs, we took a two hour ride around the valley that was quite beautiful and we saw a jackrabbit and plenty of desert scenery.

We found a trailer graveyard. Come on in for some ice tea, yall!

The people were super nice, especially Douglas, the gentleman who runs the place. He gave us a great trail map and made sure we had everything we needed. There is a pool and hot tub, so be sure to bring your skivvies! The hot tub would have been great for taking in the stars, but we ran out of time. The other people at the ranch were equally nice, we met two snowbird couples from Oregon who had come down in their RV for the hot springs and sunshine. It's overall a great place with a great ambiance.

There are a few cabins to choose from. We got the smallest one at $95 per night and it was perfect for a young couple on a budget. The larger ones have better porches and more space inside at $125 per night. For the best view of the horses, I would recommend cabin C-11, which has a large porch with a horse view.

The desert is so beautiful and quiet, calming in it's stillness and charm. We couldn't believe how well we slept, away from the lights and noise of civilization. Our only regret was that we didn't have another day to stay longer. The total cost for the cabin and horse corrals was $250, plus $70 in gas, and $20 in loose ends at the General Store. The three day weekend cost of $340 was well worth it for a weekend of relaxation and fun. We can't wait to go back soon and hopefully do a night ride under a full moon!

Beautiful desert sunset.

Just a few minutes later.

Planning to go back in March!