On Wednesday June 10, 2015 Phil Ryan and Rob Adams at the request of the Idaho Department of AG, International group meet with a delegation of Korean forest service employees and businessmen in the Korean horse industry. The day was to talk about horse trails on public lands. The recreational horse industry is only about twenty years old in Korea, but growing very fast. There is a push by riders to have trail in the public forests of Korea.
We took the group on a loop that included stops at Peace Creek trail head and Boiling Springs trail head in the Middle Fork of the Payette country. We talked about multi-use trails, how a trail should be built for horse use, bridges, fire and clearing down fall. They ask a lot of good questions and got to see some very pretty country. One of the Korean guests, the gentleman wearing the riding helmet was really taken with Phil’s F250.
After a white knuckled ride on the single track road between Peace Creek and Boiling Spring, our Korean guest had a nice lunch at the camp ground. We then took them back to Sweet, so they could see some “American” horses up close. What is more “American” than Rob’s mustangs. We also did a mini-packing demonstration which they found very interesting.  More Pictures

Good Morning Phil & Rob,

On behalf of the Department of Agriculture, I wanted to send you big thank you for hosting the Korea Forest Service Delegation last week. We appreciate your efforts putting the tour of the Boise National Forest together and providing them information about trails, trail riding, packing and everything else. This was valuable information for them to develop their plans for increasing trails and services for the growing equestrian market in South Korea. They enjoyed the time spent with you and were excited about the things they learned and were able to see. Especially the time at your home learning about the different horses, pack equipment and saddles. What a treat!

We really appreciate your cooperation and time showing these government officials why Idaho is a leader in the equestrian industry. Thank you again and we value the support your organization provided to us.

Best Regards,
Pam

Pamela Graviet
International Trade Specialist – Market Development Division
Idaho State Department of Agriculture
2270 Old Penitentiary Road
Boise, Idaho USA 83712

On Thursday June 11, 2015 Phil Ryan and Rob Adams meet with John Hidy the trail supervisor for the Boise National Forest to look at the first 1/2 mile of trail at Wilson Corral, on West Mountain.

John crossing the first bog area

This trail starts out in a bog and then goes down the center of the creek for a couple hundred feet. Both the bog and the creek section are dangerous and have been the scenes of more than one wreck. Our goal was to introduce John to this trail and consider possible route changes to the trail to make it safer and more sustainable.

don’t loose a shoe

Phil, John and I looked at a number of different route options, some requiring a lot of new trail to be build, other making the most of existing trail, but still allowing the trail to avoid the problem areas and think we have a viable set of options.

great trail, isn’t it john

John GPS a possible route, will write up a report including some of the pictures we took and present it to the forest service. The plan if approved would be implemented in the 2016 trails season. After completing out work at Wilson Corral we gave John a tour of the other trail heads as we drove back to Sage Hen and then back to Sweet. The road between Wilson Corral and Sage Hen is a mess of ruts, washout and small land slides. A number of BIG rocks were on all the road we traveled over the last couple of days.  More Pictures