Horse riders head down a path behind Fairview High School to unofficially start the Boulder to Pine Ridge South Dakota horseback ride July 30, 2016.
Andy Cross, The Denver Post
Lakota tribe Elder Gilly Running gives a traditional blessing for fellow Lakota tribe members, friends, and supporters gathered in front of Fairview High School July 30, 2016.
Andy Cross, The Denver Post
Lakota tribe member Robert Watters from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, adjusts a Tipi set up in front Fairview High School July 30, 2016.
Andy Cross, The Denver Post
Lakota tribe members, friends, and supporters gathered in front of Fairview High School July 30, 2016.
Andy Cross, The Denver Post
Lakota tribe Elder Gilly Running gives a traditional blessing for fellow Lakota tribe members, friends, and supporters gathered in front of Fairview High School July 30, 2016.
Andy Cross, The Denver Post
Lakota tribe members, friends, and supporters gathered in front of Fairview High School July 30, 2016.
Andy Cross, The Denver Post
WiWanbliWin Little Thunder, 8, from Rosebud, South Dakota, offers traditional sage smoke to everybody gathered at Fairview High School and to Blake Gibbins, right, July 30, 2016.
Andy Cross, The Denver Post
Milo Mowen, 6, keeps an eye on the activities at Fairview High School July 30, 2016.
Andy Cross, The Denver Post
Horse riders head down a path behind Fairview High School to unofficially start the Boulder to Pine Ridge South Dakota horseback ride July 30, 2016.
Andy Cross, The Denver Post
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Horse riders head down a path behind Fairview High School to unofficially start the Boulder to Pine Ridge South Dakota horseback ride July 30, 2016.
Opening ceremonies were held at the high school to kick off the Boulder to Pine Ridge, S.D., horseback ride, a 350-mile ride sponsored by non-profit Tipi Raisers organization to raise money for Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for youth ambassador programs, homes for Lakota family in Pine Ridge, exercise tracks, community gardens and many other projects. The event included ceremonial blessings and songs, speeches, and the introduction of several horses that will be ridden by Lakota, friends and supporters on the ride, which officially starts Sunday. According to the Tipi Raisers website, The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota is the home of the Oglala Lakota, land of Crazy Horse, Black elk, Red Cloud and the Wounded Knee Massacre site and is a land that attracts many from across the world, but is also a place of abject poverty, crushing unemployment leaving some of its people “desperately homeless.”
