Recently I was forutnate enough to go horseback riding. In many ways it's much different then riding a four-wheeler from place to place. Some of the benifits of horseback riding are:

• Up higher
• Riding and Controlling a real live animal
• Horse has some kind of inherit intelligence
• More natural smell and experiences
• Quiet

Quads have other benefits.

• Splashing in the mud
• Go up rougher terrian
• Less care required and can be easily stored
• Cheaper to maintain after expensive initial purposer
• Go much faster and don't get tired or need water.

Somehow there is a lot of elagence in horseback riding that I never really understood until I got to ride one of those beautiful mares. Horses seem so backwards in our technological society, yet so many people in rural areas spend a great deal of money to keep one, just for the companionship and the ability to ride. They seem to provide a level of intimacy to nature, that's not avalible from inside the cab of a pickup truck or the seat of an ATV.

It would be silly to sell an ATV for a horse, but they certainly are not mutually exclusive. It takes a step to go back and get closer to nature today, when we are so tempted just to use technology to achieve goals at a lower cost. A four-wheeler has an inital cost around 3-4x that of a horse, but the upkeep of a horse (from trailer to large animal vet bills to feed suppliments) can be far more explensive.

Horses are great, but they aren't without problems to our natural world. They can tear up trails much like ATVs can on loose ground. Run-off from horse manure can impact water quality, and around horse farms it really add up over time. ATVs can leak oil and follow up the air, though new ones are far better then previous models. Still, ATVs are noisey and their place in the forest is somewhat more questionable then horses. It doesn't take much to see why the DEC is quite permitting of horseback riders, and much less so of four wheelers.