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With some excursions, horse- back trekking, onotrekking, asinotrekking, excursions, or walks with donkeys, it indicates a particular form of soft mobility that provides, in mountain excursions, the flanking of pack animals, usually donkeys or, more than sparse, mules (the harnesses are much less used).

The animals, unlike what happens in equestrian trekking, are not ridden but only accompany people : they are therefore walks with donkeys, which can be used to carry a few pounds of weight, usually the baggage of tourists or for hikers, the need for a picnic or a packed lunch or, for short journeys, even children, for a total recommended weight that must not exceed 30% of the weight of the donkey itself, in general, around to 40 kg, corresponding to approximately the luggage of 2 or 3 hikers.

Hiking practice

Operators

The excursions are often offered by prepared and experienced mountain people, and by the owners of these animals who rent them as an integral part of the mountain eco- tourism offer.

In the case of accompanied excursions, the guide-operators are often professionals of the someggiate excursions that have followed specific training courses and hold the licenses from assisted activity operators with donkey (O.A.A.A.) and / or from a tour guide for environmental environmental issues (A.T.A.S.).

The donkeys

The donkeys for the excursions are educated to the walks and they will hardly exhibit a bizarre behavior as the Modestine of Stevenson's travel report (see box of an illustrious precedent), since the service is part of the tourist offer.

The donkeys become accustomed throughout the journey to being held with the rope by a person in front of them, while all the other hikers will find themselves next to the donkey or slightly behind, for safety out of reach of the hooves; the animals drink in the watercourses they encounter along the way and eat grass along the path, but their feeding can be supplemented by the operator with an additional ration, for example barley, to complete their nourishment.

The services

In France, in order to guarantee tourists a high quality standard and a common vision to the member companies, the French Federation of French and French has set up a Tourist Quality Charter, and has provided a Guide to the donkey, a kind of handbook containing advice and practical rules to be delivered, together with the animals, to those tourists who undertake excursions without a guide, with donkeys hired for the purpose. To give an example of a good marriage between modernity and tradition (in this case declined between marketing, ecology and entrepreneurship ), Stevenson's company is re-proposed in a modern key to tourists by the "Sur le chemin de RL Stevenson" Association, which since 1994 has equipped and punctuated the journey made by the writer between Le Monastier-sur-Gazeille and Saint -Jean-du-Gard, referred to as Grande Randonnée n. 70 (GR 70) or Chemin de Stevenson, with donkey hire stations and agreements with hotels, pensions and private homes suitable for hosting travelers' donkeys.

Types of excursions

There are different types of walks with donkeys.

The walks organized on easy and well-trodden paths, accompanied by an operator, are offered a bit by everyone and are preferred by families with children.