Wild Mustangs

After having breakfast yesterday, we took a walk downtown and were enjoying the beautiful weather when we decided to take a short trip east to try and find the Wild Mustangs. There is a tour that you can take that costs $24 per adult and it is in an open van that takes you the 22 miles or so to the area outside town. People we have talked to about this trip said you could see as much on your own, in your own vehicle, and save the money. I'm sure that the guides on these trips have "secret" locations they go to to get the most viewing of wildlife, in addition to the mustangs, but we thought we would give it a try.

We left around noon and found the turnoff almost exactly 22 miles east of Cody. There are these 2 signs as soon as you turn onto the dirt road that goes into the area:

As soon as we past these signs we spotted a herd of mustangs on the top of a hill about 1/4 mile away. This is a view of the small herd from the start of this road:

We were very fortunate to have seen this herd so soon. Usually, people have to drive into the preserve and try to locate the horses in one of the fields or canyons that spread for miles and miles in this area. We were able get a lot closer and it surprised us that they didn't "spook" and run off when we got closer. They are obviously used to seeing vehicles come and go and are accustomed to seeing people up close. Following are more shots as we got closer to the herd:

As we got further into the area, we saw several horses that were paired off and grazing, separate from the herd:

This area is so vast that you could probably drive for long distances between seeing horses. They hide out and spend a lot of time in the canyons that run throughout the area. If we had more time, we would have driven down to some of these canyon areas that you can see below:


We probably will come back to spend more time at some point. The landscape just keeps changing in every direction we drive. It is a fascinating area, to say the least.

We're getting breakfast ready now, and we will be trying to figure out if there is another short trip in our day before going to work. More tomorrow...