Dude ranches offer guests 'authentic Western experiences' and support local communities

Dude ranches teach city folk about Western living and promote
land conservation. (Nine Quarter Circle Ranch photo)

Windswept, vast and timeless, the American dude ranch is where guests learn to be cowboys and explore the  outdoors while supporting a Western business that has gained popularity over the past century.

"The very first 'dudes,' as visitors were called, were mostly folks from East Coast cities enamored with the Western lifestyle. They felt drawn to the romantic image of the cowboy, a figure somehow unchanged by the quickening urban sprawl of eastern cities," reports Graham Marema for Western Confluence. "While some forms of outdoor recreation balance negative and positive impacts on local systems by introducing something new — dude ranches contend with all three pillars of sustainability by embracing something old, traditional, and relatively unchanged."

Bryce Albright, director of the Dude Ranchers' Association, which provides membership to more than 90 dude ranches across the West, told Marema, "It's a different type of vacation. They're more of an authentic Western experience, which you can't get anywhere else. When people come out West, yes, you'll see the cowboys, and you'll see the rodeos, but until you get immersed in that kind of culture, you won't really have respect for it."

Dude ranch visitors come away with a different sense of why these parts are worth saving or may need protection. Sally Kelsey of Nine Quarter Circle Ranch, a Montana dude ranch near Yellowstone National Park, told Marema, "Something that is undervalued when it comes to our impact on conservation is our guests get to take rides in the country and learn to value a place that's very different from where they come from."

Over the past few decades, dude ranching has become a growing sector in ranching communities. Marema explains, "For some ranches, opening their doors to guests has provided an economically viable alternative or supplement to raising cattle. 'Agritourism,' which invites guests to vacation on farms and ranches, has grown in popularity among tourists and their hosts with revenue tripling in the U.S. between 2002 and 2017."

Marema writes, "Dude ranch guests spend most of their time on private land, partaking in low-impact activities like horseback riding or branding their initials into leather belts. They aren't as likely to leave trash on public trails or overburden the infrastructure of small mountain towns to the extent of other industries that rely on those towns to house, feed, and sustain their guests."