Wyoming's Wild Horses

We could have skirted around the state of Wyoming on this trip, but Denisa wanted to spend at least one night in this state. So we parked at the Walmart parking lot in Rock Springs, Wyoming, for a one-night stop in Wyoming. Besides, Mark had read that we were in the middle of wild horse country. In fact, we drove out to the wild horse corrals just outside of town as soon as we arrived.

We soon recognized that the stallions were in one corral . . .

and the mares and their colts were in the other. It was fun to see that almost every mare had a matching young one following close behind. That is the problem. Wild horses are so good at reproducing that they quickly outgrow the national grasslands set aside for them. Because they have few predators, herds can double in size every 3-4 years.

We were surprised to see this map that shows the areas where wild horses roam free in ten different states in the west. Over 40,000 free-roaming horses can be found in more than 200 herd management areas. When there are too many horses for the rangeland to support, the excess are rounded up and brought into corrals like this. Then they are sold to qualifying buyers that promise to take care of them and never resell them.

Each one of them gets a freezemark--a permanent brand on their neck with a unique code so that they can be traced.

As the sun was setting at the corrals near Rock Springs, we could see that this government wild horse program is well stocked with feed for the winter for these horses.

As neat as it was to see the wild horses in a pen, we were more interested in seeing some wild horses in the wild. We were only planning to stay one night in Rock Springs, and we wanted to go to church in the morning. So that meant a very early morning wake-up in that Walmart parking lot, so we could drive the "wild horse loop" north of town. The sun was just rising as we set out in search of some wild horses.

But our first hoofed animals were a group of pronghorns. This mother and two babes were standing quite close to our gravel road this early morning.

We saw more pronghorns on the ridge highlighted by the rising sun. What a neat silhouette! But where are the horses this morning?

As we got deeper into the drive we spotted our first group of wild horses. Then another group, then another . . .

Some of them were quite far away, but the Wyoming landscape made for a good background for this scene straight out of the old west.

We wish we would have counted how many horses we found this early morning. We were having fun on our horse safari hunt.

These three were especially close to our road, and were especially photogenic.

It started to rain as we made our loop drive. We thought it was interesting that people wanting to buy a wild horse at the corrals must prove they have food and shelter of a certain size. These wild horses have absolutely no shelter out here on the prairie, and are surviving quite nicely.

We have been driving up on top of the butte as we made the wild horse loop. So it was now interesting to drive to the edge of this tall butte and look down into the valley where the main highway is. Yesterday we were driving the motor home on that tiny ribbon of a highway far below.

As we were finishing our wild horse loop, our gravel road took us through a canyon with picturesque rock walls rising around us.

The rock formations got bigger and more impressive as we got closer to the town of Green River. In fact, the rocks behind the Hampton Inn at the edge of the town were far bigger than the four story hotel.

It was an unsettled weather day, so we were glad to get off the gravel road before it rained more. We just had time to get to church, and then we headed down the road. This corner of Wyoming gets plenty of unsettling weather in the winter, as we found snow fences paralleling the road for miles.

We're gaining lots of elevation as Mark looks out over the valleys below us now.

It was like a roller coaster ride, as we just got up on top, and then we would plummet down a 9% grade. To make this coaster ride even scarier, we saw the menacing clouds and the rain falling around us.

It's about this time that we crossed the border back into Utah. We have been doing a dosey-doe around state lines lately, and our destination tonight is back into Utah.

Sure enough, those rain clouds caught up with us, and our view from that big motor home windshield was very soggy for the rest of our trip.

By this time, we had arrived to our destination of Flaming Gorge Canyon National Recreation Area. Driving along rock canyon walls with steep drop-offs into the canyon would be tricky on any day. But adding a torrential rain storm made it scary--at least for the passenger.

After a day wandering the wonder of wild horses, we've endured a wild ride to our next destination. We'll dry out tonight, and have more adventures tomorrow at the Flaming Gorge!