Gideon Irving and The Horse Tour
Through a largely serendipitous turn of events, I recently met Gideon Irving, a musician who is currently traveling on horseback through the American West as part of a yearlong project he calls The Horse Tour. A New York City native, Gideon has traveled and performed worldwide over the past decade or so but had never worked with horses until 2018, when he decided to take a yearlong horse packing trip giving house concerts through much of the West. This is definitely my kind of adventure, and I feel very grateful to have met him, his horses Gus and Troubadour, and shared some time with them all as they traveled through New Mexico.
Gideon’s trip started approximately one month ago in Creede, Colorado, although preparations began over a year ago. A tiny mountain town in the heart of the Rio Grande National Forest, Creede sits near the Continental Divide Trail, which Gideon and his horses traveled on for much of the first month of their trip. I ran into them on the Turquoise Trail, also known as New Mexico State Road 14, NM14, or simply “North 14.” While it used to be a trail between mining towns and their respective mission churches, the Turquoise Trail is now a well-traveled route between Tijeras and Santa Fe and part of a major tourist circuit that includes Albuquerque and encircles the Sandia Mountains.
While driving north for a research trip to the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe, I first encountered Gideon and his horses heading in the opposite direction. I had no idea who this person was, but noticed that his pack horse was fully loaded and they appeared to be set up for a long trip. I decided that if I saw them on my way home later in the day, I’d stop and make sure they were safe and didn’t need any help. While I assume (or at least hope) horseback travelers have appropriate plans and arrangements already made, I sometimes like to check in with them and offer assistance in the off chance they may need something. Little did I know that Gideon’s plans involved a yearlong packing trip from Colorado through New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
On my return home from Santa Fe, I encountered Gideon and his horses as they neared the tiny town of Golden just before sunset. I asked if they needed anything, and Gideon said they had a place to stay for the night and they were doing well. Suggesting that he feel free to contact me if they needed anything as they passed through the area over the coming days, I gave him my business card and noted that I lived about 10 miles away and had room for horses if they needed a place to stay. This is when I actually learned Gideon’s name and the nature of his trip, as he noticed from my card that I was a musicologist and seemed intrigued. We chatted briefly, but he had a few more miles to go before reaching his destination for the night and the daylight was beginning to fade. I headed home, assuring him that he was welcome to contact me for any reason.
The following day, Gideon called asking if I could help him find a suitable place to stay for the night. He intended to travel a few miles past my house that day, but suggested we could meet for a coffee that afternoon and he could let his horses rest for a bit before moving on. He said he didn’t want to miss a chance to talk with a musicologist who studies cowboy songs and who also was a horse person! I suggested I could bring hay for his horses and we arranged to meet a few miles away in Cedar Crest at a trailhead adjacent to our local coffee shop. By early afternoon, Gideon had decided to cut his mileage a little short for the day as his horses were tiring a bit sooner than he had expected. I bought him a coffee and something to eat, we chatted for a bit, and he decided to overnight with my family and I and give his horses an extra hour or two of rest for the day.
It was a pleasure to host Gideon, Gus, and Troubadour for the night, and my family was excited to have a house guest who was full of fun stories and songs. His horses seemed at ease with their surroundings, which included plenty of hay and water, room to roll, and the company of my four horses nearby. That evening we all traded a few stories, the kids asked roughly a million questions about his adventures, and Gideon treated us to a sneak peak of a few of the things he’s been working on for his upcoming performances. After dinner, we got to talking about old cowboy songs, which I am currently writing my dissertation on, and the time just seemed to slip away. Talking to another musician, especially one interested in so many different styles and forms of music and who has travelled the world to both perform and experience music in a variety of new and exciting ways, was a real treat that has gotten me thinking a lot more about the ways in which people move through their surroundings and share their experiences with others. There are some really interesting correlations between 19th century cowboy musical traditions, which I’ve been studying in great depth for the past few years, and Gideon’s distinctly 21st century adventure.
Intentionally, I have tried not to ask many questions about Gideon’s motivations for this journey and any expectations he may have for it. I somehow felt that such questions were largely irrelevant and could very well have been intrusive, and I expect that he has had to (and will continue to have to) address them regularly with others whom he meets on his journey. Our conversations seemed to more comfortably rest on the details of life with horses, the challenges of riding long distances over varied and often unpredictable terrain, his unique musical experiences over the years, and a shared interest in cowboy musical traditions. While I’m certain Gideon could hold an interesting and engaging conversation on just about any topic under the sun, we had enough in common between horses and music to easily fill the time.
I learned quite a lot from talking with Gideon about his horse and packing education in rural Utah over the past year, his work with Gus and Troubadour preparing for The Horse Tour, and his experiences on the trail so far. I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about the music that we all carry with us, both consciously and unconsciously, as we move through our lives. I’m in a rather strange mental space these days, largely due to my dissertation work and diving deeply into 19th century cowboy musical traditions as part of it. I haven’t been an actively performing musician for a decade now, which also makes me feel somewhat out of touch with those who sing, play, and write music on a regular basis. Once this dissertation is done (soon!) I really need to get back in touch with that part of myself, but interestingly, Gideon’s enthusiasm and energetic nature coupled with a tendency to break into song at any given instant appear to have brought a little bit of my internal musician back to life.
This morning I found myself singing cowboy songs to my kids on the way to school before delivering 30 gallons of water, a half-bale of hay, and a cup of coffee to Gideon, Gus, and Troubadour near where they camped last night (they had no access to water after leaving my house yesterday, so I offered to meet them with some). While the horses drank and ate, Gideon mentioned that after discussing the inherent rhythms of a horse’s different gaits (walking, trotting, etc.) the day before, he had been much more aware of these rhythms and had even noticed that if he sang when the horses began to tire a little, they would begin to walk faster to match the tempo of his songs. Then, he sang the first few phrases of a song he had begun composing recently, one that, in part, expressed his gratitude for the kindness of so many strangers during his trip and an associated renewal of faith in humanity. I must admit, my own faith in humanity is bolstered by experiences such as this and people like Gideon Irving.
If you’d like to know more about Gideon Irving, visit his website here. If you’d like to learn more about The Horse Tour specifically, check out a September 19, 2019 tour announcement from Broadway World here.
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