Riding the Outlaw Trail

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kidthe last of the legendary outlaws, were captured on daguerreotype, romanced in fiction, and immortalized on film by Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Simon Casson sets out on horseback to retrace the real life footsteps of his boyhood heroes covering 2,000 miles of America's toughest and most treacherous terrain. Steeped in the lore of the Old West but lacking desert and mountain survival skills, Simon recruits ex-marine commando Richard Adamson. Together they grapple with hostile landscape, climatic extremes, vital supply shortages, and big time personality clashes. Battling from one outlaw hideout to another, following trails sometimes only accessible by horseback, they are constantly taxed to the limit. In this dramatic account of their adventure, Simon and Richard also encapsulate the exciting and violent lives of the Wild Bunch 100 years ago, and give us an intimate and heart-warming picture of the rancher families who live and work this demanding land today.

Simon Casson is a Western historian, a founding partner in a travel business, and an author.