A Red Rock Canyon Sunset Horseback Ride with Dinner
Ride for ninety minutes through Red Rock Canyon, then return to camp for a grill dinner and a campfire; hotel pickup makes it five hours door to door.
The ride lasts ninety minutes. The evening built around it lasts five, and the difference is mostly road. A van collects you from your hotel and heads west to a working camp in the high desert, twenty to thirty minutes out from the Strip. Ninety minutes of that five-hour window are spent in the saddle.
Cowboy Trail Rides is family owned and has been putting people on horses out here since 1996. The trail drops off the mesa and winds down through the narrows on the canyon floor, where erosion has cut dens into the rock walls. The sun goes down while you are still out there.
Two dinners sit behind one booking. The base fare covers chicken, salmon, or a vegetarian burger. Steak costs twenty-five dollars more and has to be chosen at checkout. The grill is too late to decide.
Three things go into the special requirements field when you book: which dinner you want, the body weight of every rider, and the hotel you want collecting from.
Red Rock Canyon Sunset Horseback Ride and Barbeque DinnerCowboy Trail Rides. Five hours door to door, ninety minutes of it on the trail.www.viator.comThe String Is Horses and Mules
The animals live at the camp, and the operator runs four named rides out of it. Wranglers ride with the group and match people to mounts by experience. Riders regularly come back describing a mule. One wrote in August 2024 that the group spent the evening "following a track on mules, so as experienced riders it was not what we wanted." Reviewers name them the way regulars do, Maggie and Happy among them.
The booking form asks for a number most tour forms never mention. Every rider's body weight goes on the reservation.
What Crosses the Trail
The operator tells riders to watch for wild burros as the group crosses the mesa. The dens cut into the rock along the narrows belong to coyotes and bobcats. The listing adds jackrabbits and desert lizards.
None of it is staged, and none of it is promised.
The Grill Comes After the Ride
Dinner waits at camp, outdoors, already underway by the time the group rides in. Steak goes on the grill cooked to order. Alongside it: green salad, Dutch oven potatoes, baked beans, and corn on the cob. Soft drinks and bottled water are included.
Dessert is a marshmallow roast and s'mores around the campfire. A bit of Western history follows, sometimes a poem, then a song. Gratuities sit outside the fare.
Who the Ride Turns Away
The minimum age is seven. The operator advises against the ride for three conditions: spinal injuries, pregnancy, and poor cardiovascular health. It rates the ride suitable for all physical fitness levels, and nothing about it is a lesson.
Riders seventeen and under are required to wear a safety helmet. Sixteen and seventeen year olds can ride without one if a parent signs a release. Helmets are available on request. One booking holds up to eight riders.
Pickup runs from a fixed list of resorts, among them Caesars Palace, the Wynn, Aria, the Rio, Excalibur, South Point, the Golden Nugget and Red Rock Casino Resort. Give your hotel when you book. Driving yourself to the camp is allowed if you would sooner skip the van. Riders report the van spends the better part of an hour collecting everyone else before it leaves town.
- Bookings close fifteen hours before the day of the ride, and confirmation is manual
- Cancel at least twenty-four hours out for a full refund
- Thin bookings and bad weather can both cancel a departure
- Summer runs on a different schedule the office gives out only by phone, Monday to Friday, 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM
The desert drops its heat the moment the sun goes, and riders who left a seventy-degree Strip in shirtsleeves say so every time. Bring a jacket and you get the part people come back for: the ride out under a low sun, and the fire waiting at the other end.