I owe you an update on my trip to photograph the wild Mustangs in Wyoming and Montana this past summer. So, at long last, here goes...It took us 2 1/2 days to drive from central Ohio to the Horseshoe Bend Motel in Lovell, Wyoming, which served as our home base of sorts while we were out West.
We spent the first week on the Pryor Mountains and the second in the high desert of McCullough Peaks. The terrain of the Pryor Mountains was, well...mountainous, and the celebrated spring wildflowers were in full bloom. It wasn't possible to take a bad picture - the scenery was breathtaking and the horses were ever-present. At about 8500 feet, the nights were extremely cold (below freezing), while the days warmed up to barely 70 degrees. We slept in tents and, thanks to our down sleeping bags, long underwear and some extra blankets, we made it through the nights without incident. Although pretty windy, we had no snow or hail and we never had to retreat to the car or (worse) Penn's Cabin (infamously known for its abundant resident rodentia).
Our second week at
McCullough Peaks was a very different experience. This was (mostly) flat, sandy desert replete with sagebrush, ATVs and cattle...in addition to about a dozen mega-bands of wild horses. The McCullough horses travel around the range in much larger herds than what we saw in the Pryors. The mega-bands are comprised of multiple families that hang out in very close proximity to each other. This makes for some really interesting horse behavior, with much posturing and fighting among the band stallions. Typical of higher elevation desert, the mornings and evenings were rather chilly but it easily reached the 80s and 90s as soon as the sun came up.I took about 800 pictures and I've spent months scrutinizing and editing them. I'm afraid I failed to fully capture the magnificence of the scenery and subject-matter - it's true that sometimes you just gotta be there. Even though Deb (the professional) and I had our cameras pointed at the same things in the same light, her shots do a much better job of expressing what it's like to be in the company of these amazing creatures. You can see some of her photos here. And here's a smattering of mine:
Shortly after we returned home in early July, there was a roundup on the Pryor Mountain. Several of the horses I had gotten to know were removed from their range. Some were adopted while too many others were sent to government-run holding facilities where they'll likely live the rest of their lives in less-than-ideal conditions of captivity. Deb was privileged to have adopted two of our Pryor favorites: Ember and Image. She has been blogging about her incredible journey with these two new "kids" of hers.
