"If your rear end hurts, your stirrups are too long. If your knees hurt, your stirrups are too short. If they both hurt, they're just right." These are the only directions I am given, and only after I enquire, as I prepare to head out on my first trail ride at Echo Valley Ranch and Spa in the British Columbia interior. I'm not too worried - I've booked a Thai massage for later in the day. Besides, I hate being babied on rides, especially by weathered cowboys.

So far, the scenery has been spectacular. Earlier, several ranch guests and I flew north from Vancouver to this newly upgraded boutique dude resort. We winged over islands of jagged evergreen patches amid shining blue waters, then crossed the coastal mountains (near Whistler, BC) where glacial run-off feeds lakes glistening emerald and sapphire. We finally banked right, turning east into the dry interior with its mountains ridged like coruching dinosaurs. Less than 90 minutes after take-off, the Piper Navajo circled a meadow and landed on the ranch's private runway. Here, on 10,000 acres of leased Crown land (the ranch own 160 acres outright), the horses outnumber the people, and the border collies earn their keep as early-warning systems for hungry coyotes.

After a quick tour and a chance to settle in, we meet Travis Eyer, the head wrangler. He reminds one of my fellow guests of the Asterix comic book here, Lucky Luke, but I'm thinking more along the lines of Toy Story's Woody. Eyer is a long drink of water. There's a worn black stetson on his head and, except for the walkie-talkie in his chaps, shoved into a pocket that once held rifle cartridges, he looks the part. Later I learn he checks the daily weather forecast on the Internet and has his pilot's license. Never mine, he can ride.

I am about to discover this as we spot a cow and her calf among the lodgepole pine and Douglas fir. There are only three guests riding and we've agreed to participate in a little late-season roundup. Crashing through the brush on Penny, a copper-colored, compact-model quarter horse, I have a hard time keeping up with Eyer even though I'm an experienced rider. But what a rush. If England had dude ranches, there might be less of a fight to save the foxhunt. Catching stray cattle has many of the same elements: dogs, horses, suspense and the unpredictable chase - although cows don't generally lead you over jumps, which us just as well in a Western saddle.

Rarely in the lore of the Wild West do the words cowboy and Thai massage appear in the same paragraph. Pity. Echo Valley Ranch owners Norm and Nan Dove have extracted the roughing-it element from the ranch experience. Forget trail dust in your hair and chapped skin. Think Jacuzzi, sauna, pool and a new, self-contained Thai spa. After easing myself out of the saddle, I'm inroduced to petite massage therapist, Nuttha Auttapong. She gives me my first-ever Thai massage with her palms and the heels of her feet, a rubdown that consists of more leaning than kneading. She even stands on my quads. I leave completely relaxed. Forget reading. I'm taking a nap.

The food is also far from cowpoke fare. A few years ago, the Doves adopted the "eat right for your blood type" diet. I had heard of Dr. Peter D'Adamo's book but not surprisingly never got around to trying it at home. So the first morning I'm keen. "I'm type A," I tell chef Kim Madsen. He nods sagely. "You can eat rice cakes, Rice Krispies, spelt bread, fruit salad but no strawberries, and eggs." I look at the bacon frying, the pastries beckoning on the counter and quickly decide that my stay is too short to properly assess the diet's merit. With a full day of riding ahead of me, better stick with what I know, or rather the "eat what you like" diet.

All the guests sit at two large dining tables and compare plans. A group of women training for Kilimanjaro will be hiking Mt. Bowman. At 7,350 feet it is the highest mountain in the Marble range and is a short drive east of the ranch. Several watercolourists are going for a walk and some birdwatching near a marsh. Others opt for spa treatments. We reconvene for lunch and a well-thumbed Audubon book is passed around to confirm a marsh hawk sighting. After lunch, we watch Brian Davies, a naturalist and local ranch hand, exercises his three-year-old gyrfalcon, Miss Moody.

That night I sit in Dove Lodge with itd logs from 80-year-old spruces, its Persian rugs, leather couches and potted orchids while the conversation drifts from local trees felled due to pine beetle infestation to the merits of single-malt Scotch to the Transivian Naked Neck Turkin's tolerance for cold. The latter is a bird species reputed to be "ugly as sin." They make turkeys seem cuddly by comparison. I think about Miss Moody the falcon and how she had soared and swooped for the lure after her hood was removed. How, eventually, she was allowed to catch the bait before being clipped back onto the line. Exhiliration and then time to go back to the roost.

In my case, it's time to switch locales to the rustic Flying U Ranch, located on the shores of Green Lake, eight miles off the main highway that runs up breathtaking Fraser Canyon. It's a five-hour drive from Vancouver, but less than 90 minutes from Echo Valley. "Did you bring matches?" the redheaded bartender asks shortly after I pass through the swinging doors into the ranch's 1880's-era saloon. Not your standard check-in question, but then these are not standard accommodations.

Honestly, I hadn't exercised due diligence. I knew The Flying U would let me head out on my own on their horse. This was all a former horse-crazed gal needed to know. Horse plus nature plus solitude: many a teenage paperback novel has proven this combination a winner. This place was actually named after a popular series of novels by B.M. Bower that inspired the 1927 western, The Flying U Ranch.

The ranch's history is as good as any western yarn. A trading post in the 1820s, the place was abandoned after a particularly severe winter. According to local legend, the departing settlers left a not deeding the property to whomever came across it next. In 1886, William and Mary Boyd became the first official owners of the ranch in part to help provision their roadhouse along the Cariboo gold rush trail. The Boyds' son, a rodeo champ, later opened the ranch to guests, creating what the current owners claim is the first dude ranch in Canada.

Today there is running water and electricity, but the log cabins, built in the 1920s, are heated by wood stove. Hence the matches. Little else seems to have changed, which only heightens the "living museum" ambience of the place. Guests are encouraged to brush their horses and help out with the chores. Staff lay on the homestead tucker and will pack you a lunch if you're heading out for the day. They'll throw in a complimentary map, revised sometime in the last century, but if you get lost all you have to do is drop the reins and the horses will bring you back to the barn.

Before being allowed out on your own on a horse, however, there is the little matter of a quick psychological assessment. A gruff older fellow, who had been keeping a low profile until this point, looks everyone straight in the eye, in turn, and quizzes us on our riding experience. "Well, I own my own chaps," I say. Blank stare. "Beginner, intermediate, or advanced?" he asks. He turned out to be a good matchmaker. The first morning, I go riding with two people I meet over breakfast. We get a little lost, so it is comofrting to be with others on these 40,000 acres. The next day I strike out solo past the cattle to investigate an old deserted ranch. By the end of my stay, I can open and close the wooden gates myself without dismounting, a handy skill on a working ranch.

The current owners may not have as authentic a ranching past as the place itself (actor and owner Paul Crepeau only learned to lasso for a Sam Shepard play), but they pitch in with the hired hands come Saturday nights. Their eight-piece "World Famous Flying U Band" is darn good, cranking out a little bit of country, a little bit of rock 'n' roll. This is fitting. The ranch is said to have turned legendary Canadian singer-songwriter Ian Tyson onto all things western during a visit as a citified teen. The dance floor is crowded until someone shouts for us to come outside and see the northern lights. We pour into the crisp night and stare at the red (yes, red) shimmering lights Any clear night this far from light pollution is bound to reveal the sky as unfamiliar, brightly populated landscape.

Under the same moon and stars, but a day's drive west across the Rockies, are the 38 guest ranches of Alberta. Canada's "wild rose country" is also horse country. From the Montana border in the south to the Peace River region in the north, vacationers looking to saddle up can find a range of working holiday or pure holiday options. At Brewster's Kananaskis Guest Ranch, 45 minutes west of Calgary, you can take easy half-day rides in the foothills along the Bow River or challenging four-day backcountry trips. You'll stay in remote cabins and travel along a trail used for more than 100 years to move horses to their winter grazing pastures. If you decide you want to work some other muscles, there's a new golf course on-site and Brewster's regularly organizes guided fishing, canoeing and rafting rtips. Come sundown, the cowboy theme prevails at barbecues where the specialty of the house is "hip of beef" followed by country music around the campfire.

Always wanted to wrestle a calf? Join "an old-fashioned branding party" held every spring at 18,000-acre Adam Ranch, northwest of Edmonton. On what is also Canada's largest buffalo ranch, you'll learn how to drive Texas Longhorn cattle, pitch hay, mend fences or ride a steer. Here you can take the reins driving a covered wagon, then sleep in it overnight out on the range. Most guest stay in the original cowboy bunkhouse, heated by a wood stove a la The Flying U.

Fortunately, you don't have to spend much time in the Alberta wilderness to spot charismatic fauna. Scattered throughout the Rockies are elk, moose, bighorn sheep, eagles and timber wolves, along with many small critters such as pine martins, pikas and marmots. Best of all, on horseback you'll have the time to appreciate whatever you see-and to delight in the four-legged viewing platform that takes you there.