One of the great mysteries of the desert is why Arapaho Creek is not an HMA.

It sits in the center of Red Desert Complex, surrounded by the five HMAs of Crooks Mountain, Green Mountain, Lost Creek, Stewart Creek, and Antelope Hills and for all of the 15+ years that I have been traveling the roads and trails across this land I have known wild horses to wander as if it had always been theirs to wander.....

And that is because it has always been theirs!

Not just in the ancient way of a native species that has always been here, although that is true too, but in a documented on paper by BLM way.

Arapaho Creek is the very soul of the Red Desert, the wandering and gathering of horses across its hills and valleys is not by accident, I have driven roads and 2-tracks, walked dusty trails following wild horse hoof-prints, each visit teaching me something new of the land and of her horses.

It is a place where I feel a deeply soulful connection to the land itself and where if ever there were magic to be found, it is here.

And I would dare to say it is the best of the desert when we discuss the practicality of it, with long sloping grassy hills, high buttes where one can see forever into the distance as the winds wrap around you, water found in deep hidden stream beds, seasonal snow and rain fed lakes, and natural springs in little meadows - the only time this land has proven deadly to its wild inhabitants is in the harshest of winters.

And many years ago, after the Wild Horse & Burro Act was signed in 1971, this land found itself assigned as an HMA in which wild horses were found to naturally exist.

It held that status for many years.... as part of the Seven Lakes HMA.

At that time HMA lands ran across parts of what is now known as Stewart Creek, Lost Creek, and Arapaho Creek and managed by the Rawlins field office.... Green Mountain HMA was a separately managed wild horse land managed by the Lander field office.

In the maps we have found so far Crooks Mountain HMA does not appear to originally exist within the massive HMA of Seven Lakes.

In the documents I have found so far it shows that in 1994 began the formal discussion of changing the HMA areas, breaking them apart into separate individual HMAs rather than managed as one large HMA.

If you have spent much time studying current HMA maps you will recognize the beginning of the creation of what is now the Red Desert Complex, with the area that is now Arapaho Creek originally included as part of the proposed Crooks Mountain HMA - so what happened!?!

I don't know - yet... as I was studying the maps I realized that the HMAP provided for the public to review, well - it is not the final approved HMAP!

So we the public are left guessing at a lot of things because we have no idea what the final decision was or any of the reasoning behind that decision.

And the historical documents that might show and explain the reasoning behind this have been very difficult to gather... with access often purposely restricted by BLM staff.

At the beginning of the Scoping Notice for this proposed action I had an awkward conversation with the Wild Horse Specialist in the Lander office.... a part of that conversation was about Arapaho Creek and whether or not it should be zeroed out.

He stated that Arapaho Creek was not meant to be wild horse land, that it had been decided many years ago, and that the decision was made because there was no natural water sources for the horses in the area, and that in the summer the horses crowded the cows out of the water tanks that were there for the cows.

Okay so.... I have SO many things to say to that - none of which I said to him because the conversation was already awkward and it was clear he was tired of the conversation - and if you happen to know this particular specialist well then you know he is never wrong.... never!

I approach every conversation with him hoping there may be some useful information shared, and knowing that anything said has to be taken with a grain of salt, as not all said is always accurate.

And it is terribly inaccurate to state that there is no water in Arapaho Creek.

The proof I have to that is enough in and of itself for another blog.

I will simply leave it here with this thought - if there are no natural water sources available to wild horses, then why do horses choose to stay in the area during the months when cows are not on the range, and man managed water sources are turned off and are empty?

How are the horses able to survive for six months at a time without the cattle water tanks to drink from?

And no, there is not snow on the ground for all of those six months...

One of the failures of both Lander and Rawlins field offices is to understand the movement of wild horses across the land... in one of those awkward conversation with the Lander specialist I was informed 'that horses do not go looking for friends or anything else they stick to one general area!'

This has been a repetitive theme from the Lander office, refusing to admit that wild horses wander, explore, and migrate naturally.

In this preliminary EAs documents there is some discussion by the specialist of how horses were forced to move during the harsh winter of 2022/23 and that there are horses outside of HMA boundaries due to 'excess population'.

Okay - lets talk about these two things....

Wild horses absolutely moved around and changed ranges during the winter of 2022/23 - that winter required every grazing animal to move in abnormal patterns to survive, those that did not move did not survive!

Horses moved from Stewart Creek across to the flats in Lost Creek, and Antelope Hills horses moved eastward towards Stewart Creek and Jeffrey City, the few horses that had been in Arapaho Creek that survived went anywhere but Arapaho Creek.

Horses moved into the southern edge of Green Mountain because somewhere in there is a place that horses can survive harsh winters... and then when that winter ended - well - the movement and migration got much bigger much more quickly.

With the heavy death toll that left yearling foals as sole survivors from their family, single mares that had lost stallions and bandmate mares and foals, single stallions taking in the lost yearlings - they were looking for other horses!!

The desert was the emptiest I have ever experienced including - after roundup and removals - and the horses felt that emptiness deeply!

And that movement and migration changed where horses are today.... and some of them continue to move across miles restlessly.

Yes, the winter forced wild horses to move, in a much more dramatic way than you would normally observe, but to claim they moved only because of that winter is to blindly deny that every single herd in this complex has a winter migration, it may be a small move or it may involve miles of trekking across one or more wild horse land.

Expanding across the land and outside of HMA lines because of 'excess population'.... so, I actually do not deny this happens - as herds grow of course they need to move around and find new territory to support the growing family.

I mean, humans do this, so why would it be any different for horses?

But - that is not necessarily what is happening at this exact moment in time.... rather this is attempting to justify the claim of over population and denying other things:

1) It is not fully acknowledging that the effects of the 2022/23 winter are ongoing as horses are still migrating as they continue to adjust, most horses at this time have paired up with other horses, but they may have done so out of their normal home area and they may still be working their way back towards that original area.

Or maybe where they found themselves after that bitter winter is a really amazing place that they really like and just decided to hang out there... it happens!

2) What exactly is the definition of out of HMA? A few miles outside of the man drawn-line where there are no fences stopping the migration? Across private property that is between the man-created HMA lines?

Or are we mostly discussing Arapaho Creek without saying clearly that is where the majority of the 'off HMA' horses may be found at this time.

Without clearly identifying where off HMA each wild horse was found and lumping it into one grand # of 264 we can only guess that they mean Arapaho Creek.

The provided infrared census count shows us that in 2025 there were 183 adult wild horses counted in Arapaho Creek, which actually is fairly close to what I have been guessing at since the winter if 2022/23, with the migration in and out of Arapaho Creek being a constant.

So here we are.... back at the heart of it all - Arapaho Creek.

Any wild horses found in Arapaho Creek should not be considered off HMA, they should not be considered excess, and they should not be completely zeroed out.

Arapaho Creek is a part of the Red Desert Complex.

Arapaho Creek is a necessary and natural corridor between the five HMAs of the Red Desert Complex - all five HMAs, because the horses absolutely move in and out of each HMA and criss-cross back and forth across the desert.

Years ago when I first observed a favorite Green Mountain wild horse family moving into the desert I was surprised and amused.... I documented them in this migration routine for a few years, always leaving Green Mountain as the snows fell, and returning as the grasses grew thick and lush once again on the mountain.

Until one year they stayed in the desert.... and this beautiful family of blue roans, buckskins, and pintos became a part of the mixing bowl that is Arapaho Creek.

That is the magic of Arapaho Creek.... it is not something that the wild horses cross in one or two days on their way to the next HMA.

No, they meander in and out, they cross from the east to west and south to north - and they sometimes just kind of hang out for months, or even years.

And it is in those long stretches of time that the mixing of genetics occurs.... it is in those mixing of genetics that we ensure the health of the Red Desert Complex herd.

This really is just the short version of how these things go... I have documentation of wild horses moving across this land in days, months, years - and in those travels they leave their mark across the desert in a way that man could never replicate.

Blue Zeus was a young bachelor that once ran in the hills of Crooks Mountain... then edges of Green Mountain, as he became a steady family band stallion he claimed the hills of Arapaho Creek as his land, before the helicopters took him and his entire family in 2020, completely obliterating his unique and exceptional bloodline from the desert.

Romeo, the love of my life and the reason I do this advocacy work.... I strongly suspect with his thick build and pinto coat that he originally came across from Green Mountain, taking up residence in the non-HMA part of Crooks Mountain, his mares were from a little bit of everywhere including Arapaho and Lost Creek, his foals would grow up and scatter across the desert, several would migrate out into the heart of Arapaho Creek and then were then taken in the roundup of 2020.

One of his colts though still runs wild in the hills of Green Mountain.... carrying on the legacy of his father and his mother in the wild places.

Lady Gaia, a mare that was with Romeo for a few years on Crooks Mountain, the mother of Zeus and many other stunning foals - she wandered all across the desert wandering in and out of Arapaho Creek, Lost Creek, Antelope Hills - and her legacy lives on in Antelope Hills, Arapaho Creek, and Green Mountain.

This is only the beginning of how these horses wander and move across this land... it is only a small glimpse into how the incredible mixing of Arapaho Creek influences every single HMA of the Red Desert Complex.

Arapaho Creek is a necessary and pivotal part of the Red Desert Complex.

To ignore it as that and to declare it as a zero out land for wild horses, is to ignore what has historically been acknowledged by BLM as wild horse lands, and it is to put in jeopardy the health of the herds in individual HMAs of the Red Desert Complex.

And it is incorrect of BLM staff to state that they cannot give HMA status to Arapaho Creek during this current action.

It is not outside of the scope of an EA and it is especially important to discuss at the time when updating an HMAP that is 32 years old.

An EA can identify a purpose and need for change in management of wild horses, and with that purpose or need identified changes such as increasing the boundary of an HMA, or adding an HMA, can be achieved.

Once the EA is approved then will follow the actions of adding an amendment to an active Range Management Plan as a maintenance action.

Comment periods exist for the reason of allowing the public to have a voice in how their public lands are managed - ALL of the public, not just those with political sway.

This is the exact moment when it should be discussed and assessed for the action of returning Arapaho Creek into HMA status.

Link to BLM project page with information, documents, and participation:

https://eplanning.blm.gov/Project-Home/?id=6c9a6ab7-c027-f111-8341-001dd804183b

***COMMENTS DUE BY END OF DAY - MONDAY, JULY 13 2026***

What is in the spelling of a name...... **Arapaho or Arapahoe**

You maybe noticed that I spell it as Arapaho Creek, while others are adding an 'e' at the end making it Arapahoe Creek.

Does it matter? Maybe.... probably mostly depends on your view of history.

I began with Arapaho Creek as that is how the documents I first found showed it spelled..... and that is how most current BLM maps show it.

As I read through older BLM documents looking for more information on the wild horse management from the Lander and Rawlins offices, I found references using the spelling of Arapahoe - which made me wonder - when and why did it change?

So I started researching and asking questions of people way smarter than me!

Arapahoe was the spelling used initially as western territories were settled and a mis-interpretation was made in how others called the Arapaho tribe, and an 'e' was added on by the settlers and carried forward well into the 1900s, as is found in many of the older documents I have been reading.

As time wore on and the preferred spelling by the tribe of Arapaho was understood, the 'e' was dropped in most instances.... so there you have it, a tiny bit of history, whether or not it matters is up to you.