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Explore Something New at Thunder Horse Outfitters

Fall is finally here which means it’s time to get outside and soak up the crisp weather and beautiful Texas scenery. What better way to do that than from a new perspective; horseback! At the top of the year, we made it our mission to Explore Something New in our backyard(s) and tell y’all all about it. Our fall recommendation? A scenic trail ride at Thunder Horse Outfitters!

Located to the west of Burnet near Lake Buchanan, at Thunder Horse you can take individual and group trail rides on the Reveille Peak Ranch. Thunder Horse operates in Texas from October 1st to June 1st. In the summer months, you'll find them in Grand Lake, Colorado.

Thunder Horse Outfitters was founded in 2018 by Travis Caffee, 37, of Austin, Texas. The operation began in Grand Lake, CO and has since expanded to the Texas Hill Country. What started as a string of a few rescue horses has now grown to a herd of 15. Though Caffee began horseback riding when quite young, it was only in his twenties that he realized he wanted to build his future around working with horses. With life pillars built on curiosity, seizing opportunity, and a passion for learning traditional techniques, Thunder Horse was born.

Travis learned to ride at a stable near his grandmother's summer home in Colorado. Leslie Hicks, the owner of Dark Horse Outfitters, was a woman of many talents. In addition to being a horse-handler and outdoorswoman, she was an Alpine and Nordic ski instructor, a member of the ski patrol, and an EMT. She was a tough teacher. One of Travis' early memories as an eight year old was dealing with a horse that did not want to cross a creek. Leslie told him, "Figure it out and if you can't handle it, go home." While the rest of the group rode on, Travis was left alone to manage his cantankerous horse. After the initial shock, Travis got his horse across the water, and over the years, perhaps thanks to Hicks being so hard on him, he became a skilled rider.

One of his favorite memories of working with Hicks took place when he was 11 or 12 years old. They were leading a group on an old mining road when a thunderstorm blew up. The horses and riders were frightened by the thunder and lightning and were starting to panic. Horses can sense calm or panic in a rider and react accordingly. Travis felt a deep calm come over him and he was able to lead his group to safety. It was a turning point in his life. He discovered that he could be comfortable in difficult situations where calm and skill could save the day. 

At about 10 years old, Travis was introduced to Native American philosophies and practices thanks to a professional connection of his mother’s. She introduced him to Mary Thunder, a counselor who was also an internationally recognized Lakota Peace Elder and activist. She founded Thunder Ranch in West Point Texas where she offered ceremonies, gatherings, and opportunities for people to connect to the Spirit.  At Thunder Ranch Travis experienced sweat lodges and began learning about the Native American view of life and survival skills. Unbeknownst to him at the time, these experiences and skills would lay the foundation for his future. Mary Thunder died in 2017 and is the namesake of Thunder Horse Outfitters.

It was in his teenage years at AmeriCorps American Youthworks program that Caffee took advantage of two opportunities that would end up changing the trajectory of his life. The first was a book given to him by the director of the program - The Tracker: The True Story of Tom Brown Jr. In the book Brown tells the story of how he learned his tracking and survivalist skills from a friend's Apache grandfather. Travis was hooked and eventually attended Brown's Tracker school where he learned many of the skills described in Brown's books.

The second opportunity that came his way courtesy of AmeriCorps was an offer to learn stonework. John Hibbetts, a Scots stone mason who once worked on the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., had a workshop close to AmeriCorps' office in East Austin. Travis was the first student to take up his offer. He spent his time learning how to cut rock using a hammer and a chisel. "Hibbets put me on very basic things. I realized quickly that I wasn't a carver. I'm good with stone, landscaping style, and building staircases." It was hard work, but the skills he learned would lead to a major change in his life.

In 2006, Travis had the opportunity to be a crew leader on a weeklong Texas Trail Tamers event in Rocky Mountain National Park. During this visit, Travis led his crew through the Bear Lake area working to build, restore, and enhance trails with stone steps. The Park Service was so impressed with his skills that they saw to it that he was hired on at Rocky Mountain as a stone mason and trail builder. Travis settled into the semi-nomadic lifestyle he's been following for the past 19 years, spending half a year in Colorado and the winter months working in a warmer clime.

Late in the season of Travis' first year at Rocky Mountain, he was living alone in a park service cabin. He had filled the cabin with "stations" devoted to arts like flint knapping stone and other traditional skills he had learned at Tracker school. Unexpectedly, the Park Service assigned him a roommate, Kee Elsisse a ranger who oversaw the Park's West Side Barn program for mule and horse packing. Kee surveyed Travis' workstations and asked, "What the hell is all this white boy." Kee and Travis hit it off right from the start and it proved to be one of the most meaningful relationships in Travis' life.

Roads are scarce in Rocky Mountain National Park and crews of construction workers and researchers often need the help of mules and horses to carry equipment and supplies to otherwise inaccessible locations. In the following year, Travis became Kee's apprentice bringing him into the world of mule and horse packing: how to keep the animals in good shape for their important work and learning the art of packing, loading, and leading the animals. Officially, Travis was still a trail builder, but Kee stole him for half the time. By the third year, Travis was officially a packer.

Travis' background in Native American culture and his experiences of learning through discipline and hard work had prepared him to learn from Kee. Introducing something new such as a knot to secure loads, Kee would preface the demonstration with, "I'm old and you're young. I'm only going to show you this once." He would do it fast, and it was up to Travis to watch carefully and to practice again and again until he had figured it out and mastered the skill. Sometimes when Travis would ask a question, he would have to wait several days for Kee's answer which would be delivered seemingly out of the blue.

Kee also used what he called Coyote teaching. For example, when learning to use a bow drill to start a fire, Kee would tell Travis all the steps but would leave one thing wrong. "You're carving it perfect, you're getting the form perfect, you're using pressure correctly." But it wasn't working. Kee would say, "Oh, you trusted everything that I said? There's a piece missing. Now you figure it out." Travis believes in learning-by-doing. "It's a much better way of teaching. Once you have it, you learn it so much better."

According to Travis, Kee was a hard worker. If he had free time, he was stepping into the next role. "Okay now I'm going to clear trees. Now I'm going to do this." Travis points out that "It wasn't like let's take down time. It was a sense of personal pride - which is one of the tricky parts of government work, you're getting paid the same whether you go above and beyond or you do the bare minimum and kinda step back. We had all maxed out our jobs. There was nowhere to go unless we wanted to push paper. We wanted to be riding horses and be in the woods. There was no moving up. You were at your spot. Now how much do you personally care to want to do extra? That's where Kee has always been above and beyond: do the best that you can and then do some extra. It's cool that we've been friends for so long now."

After several years of working together, Kee retired, and Travis took over his job running the West Side Barn and the string of mules and horses for the Park Service. It was during this time, that Travis realized, "I really could spend the rest of my life working with horses." and he began to develop a plan for a horse outfit of his own.

After nine seasons with the Park, Travis opened Thunder Horse Outfitters in Grand Lake. Travis built his string with rescue horses finding them at auctions, foreclosures, and even as gifts. He looks for horses with a "kind eye" and ones that can be revived with good food, dental and hoof care, plus kindness. He takes customers on trail rides on the Bureau of Land Management and private lands in the area. In late 2023, Thunder Horse was awarded a ten-year contract with the Park Service that now allows him to take riders into Rocky Mountain National Park as well.

These days, Travis and his horses spend the winter months at Reveille Peak Ranch, just west of Austin. Thunder Horse has access to over 63 miles of trails running through beautiful and rugged Hill Country landscapes. There are so many possibilities that Travis can offer a variety of short rides as well as day long and overnight trips with little or no backtracking.

What are Travis' future plans for Thunder Horse? "I want to keep the regular horse program going, and I want to develop more and more into how we can make kids excited about nature by adding more nature philosophy and survivalist skills. It's a mind set that's so adaptive: Where are you? What's the plant foliage? What's going on with this? What's going on with that? It's a Sherlock Holmes mindset The horses help with that mindset. You can't be thinking about the future or the past. It is the present, right now."

We hope you'll consider a visit to Thunder Horse Outfitters either here in Texas or in their summer home at Grand Lake, Colorado. Meet Travis and his string of horses and get a true Texas experience out in Texas Hill Country or in the Rockies. Tell him Whole Earth sent ya! Here's a brief video to give you a taste of what you might expect.