Rancho Los Banos Adventure Guest Ranch, Los Banos, Mexico Horseback Riding

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Discover a world-class riding ranch, quickly gaining worldwide recognition for our outstanding riding trails, our scenery, our back country and adventures. To ride at the ranch is to ride at one of the best riding ranches anywhere in the world. Indeed, those who know riding, and have been to the ranch, continue to return, year after year, having fallen in love with riding at the ranch. It is safe to say that no other ranch in Arizona, Mexico or the Southwest offers the scenery, pristineness, vastness, landscapes and freedom experienced at our ranch.

At the ranch, besides our many scenic nature trails, you can also ride to numerous historical attractions. Our guests visit a 17th century abandoned Jesuit gold mine [at 6,000 feet of elevation with views that go for miles], by the name of San Jose, where many Native American slaves perished. Deep inside a scrub oak, canopy-filled canyon at the foot of 7,500 ft El Pinito Mountain, guests also visit the remains of a 19th century bandit hiding camp where both American and Mexican outlaws went to lay low. After all, the Wild West did not end at the border.

You can also ride to 2,000 year old pre-Colombian dwellings full of pictographs, deep inside El Cajon Canyon, or visit a 20 mile long lake, and its dam, built during the Great Depression by the architects and engineers that also built Hoover Dam [the dam is a smaller replica of Hoover]. Guests also visit the ruins of an early 20th century homestead, with a genuine Model T Ford skeleton gathering rust.

At Cat Claw Cliffs, you will ride up to the top, with spectacular 360 degree views. These cliffs and its canyons, the story goes, hold the lost gold of an outlaw on the run, stashing his treasure after robbing a stagecoach. If that is not enough, you can ride to magnificent views of famous El Tigre, a nearby Sierra Madre mountain that acted as Geronimo's [famous Apache chief] Last Stronghold. Indeed, to ride at the ranch is to ride in what was once prime Apache country, where the fierce warriors once rode, camped and lived. At the ranch, after all, you are riding, breathing and living through history.

Besides riding through history, you will also ride through a diversity seldom seen at a guest ranch. You will explore pristine wilderness and diverse habitats and have chance encounters with our wildlife, including mountain lion. Guests ride to our high country, passing through vertical sierras, to locations such as Los Toros, 'The Bulls,' a mountainous region so remote and secluded few humans have ever seen. Indeed, so remote is this region, that ferrel cattle roam its mountains, seldom, if ever, having seen a single human being.

You will also ride to 'El Sordo,' 'The Deaf Man,' high country so named for the incredible, omnipresent silence and quietness one encounters when there. Down in our Canyonlands, you will ride through stunning, wet, box canyons full of life, with cliff walls hundreds of feet high. You will ride through rock formations, formed over eons, that are beautiful manifestations of nature as it artistically carves its way through time.

Throughout the ranch, you will explore habitats that are varied, diverse and exotic. You will see regions full of desert palm trees, organ pipe cacti, ocotillo forests, sycamore canopies and much more. You will ride through hills covered in knee-high, golden-colored grass, and see a vast collection of high country vegetation. With a riding elevation between 3,200 to 6,000 feet, your entire conception of what a desert is will be radically altered.

With no signs of civilization, you will immerse yourself in our high desert environments, whether riding inside box canyons, river beds, vertical and rocky sierras, high elevation terrains, ravines, cliffs, mesas and/or rolling foothills dressed in golden grass. With elevation range between 3,200 and 6,000 feet above sea level, you can select our high country or canyonlands riding trails. With our old and new school genuine Mexican cowboys as your guides, along with our European cowgirls, riding at Rancho Los Baños will become an unforgettable experience, whether you are an experienced rider or an eager beginner.

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We are a scenic nature travel destination and pristine wilderness area enveloped by some of the most unique, inspiring, diverse and spectacular desert landscapes anywhere. At the ranch, guests stay inside 30,000 acres of exclusive, serene, remote, quiet and protected wilderness. Active guests with a love both of the outdoors and of nature have a wonderful stay with us.

While we are located in spectacular northeast Sonora, Mexico, we are so close to Arizona that we would like you to consider our ranch for a possible stay. If you love riding, there is no comparision in the Southwest. We offer a land, a vastness, seclusion and scenery that is incomparable, a level above any guest/working ranch in Arizona, and more scenic, unique, exotic, pristine and spectacular as well.

Offering high desert diversity and vistas not seen in the US Southwest, with 30,000 pristine acres of back country riding, the ranch offers a great holiday stay, with trail rides that thrill, challenge, educate and inspire. If you seek an active adventure travel destination, our ranch might be the place for you. Our diverse, high desert landscapes offer scenery, diversity and vegetation simply not seen in the US Southwest, with combination of terrain and vegetation that make our ranch truly unique.

Our offices are based in Tucson. Through our shuttle service, we personally pick you up in Tucson, the airport or central hotel, and drive you to the ranch and back, leaving the driving to us and the sightseeing to you.

We are a new generation guest ranch catering to new generation adventure travelers, offering world-class back country, high desert horseback riding and high desert, box canyon hiking, among many other adventures such as lake kayaking and fishing. We remain, however, a genuine, old-school Mexican cattle ranch.

We are best known for our world-class horseback riding and trail rides along with our hiking, walking and trekking wilderness and box canyon adventures. Quickly gaining a reputation for the best and most scenic back country riding anywhere, come discover what many past guests refer to the best riding they have ever done. It is not a coincidence that many of our returning guests are experienced horse lovers and riders, with them finding at the ranch a truly remarkable riding adventure.

With security a non-issue, as our past guests quickly discover, enjoy a stay surrounded by a wilderness that is majestic, spectacular and completely unspoiled, in a part of the world that is as safe as any other ranch in North America. With an elevation range between 3,200-7,500 feet above sea level, riding at the ranch offers dozens of diverse habitats and great thrills and challenges on our trails. A guest can also ride two weeks straight without seeing the same trail twice.

Our ranch is a great escape, a chance to surround yourself with pristine wilderness, scenic landscapes and a quietness that is often sought but hard to find. Offering a freedom seldom experienced in traditional guest ranches, you will ride as it has always been meant to, surrounded by complete beauty, with little restraints, few rules, no fences, with great horses, in amazing diversity, and in sheer vastness that is breathtaking. At Los Banos, our riding program offers quality over quantity, putting people over profit.

Combined with great B&B-style accommodations and service, all inclusive packages, unbeatable rates, Mexican hospitality and food that is second to none, close proximity to the United States, staying in pristine and isolated land, and a natural scenery that is spectacular to see, together with world-class horseback riding and hiking, Rancho Los Baños is sure to make your stay an exciting, fun-filled, relaxing and memorable one.

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We offer great 4-7 night specials and packages, and offer accommodations in a B&B style lodge, cabins and cabin tents. All packages are all-inclusive [meals, beverages, snacks, guided adventures] and also include roundtrip transportation from Tucson to the ranch.

Visit our website for further information on rates and accommodation.

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The Valenzuela family, cattle ranching pioneers from the northeast of Sonora dating back to the early 20th century, has owned and operated the ranch continuously since the early 1950's, now three generations strong, as always protecting its wildlife and preserving its natural beauty. Having emigrated originally from Andalucia, southern Spain, in the mid 1600's, settling in northeast Sonora, the Valenzuelas' have a great understanding of this part of the world.

The new generation is American raised and educated, at one time having called Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, Phoenix and Barcelona, Spain home. They are both bilingual and bicultural, having previously worked as marketing executives, business managers, in human resources, education and the law. Over the years, the Valenzuelas' have successfully managed the ranch through thick and thin, drought and abundance, helping make the ranch one of the most successful ranching enterprises in Sonora. The family's deep seated belief in living with nature and not at its expense has helped preserve this enchanting land much the same way as it has been for thousands of years.

Our Team consists of a collection of family, old and new school vaqueros, and European [Germany, UK, France] wranglers, guides/hosts and personnel that, together, help make your stay with us a memorable, relaxing and thrilling experience. We are a tight-knit group that strives to provide great hospitality and top-notch service.