Our next adventure is changing course a little bit as we leave the Red Desert Complex and travel south to Adobe Town HMA.... this is not an HMA that I know well as I have been only a few times and felt dreadfully lost each time!!

But, it is a place that struck me with its one of a kind landscape and wild horses, and both the land and the horses left an impression that will last a lifetime.

It is also an HMA that is currently threatened with a significant loss of land by the most recent BLM range management plan, we are currently waiting on a decision from the 10th Circuit Court that will decide the future of where wild horses are allowed (by man) to wander in Adobe Town, and if wild horses will be allowed to continue to exist in the Salt Wells Creek and Great Divide Basin HMAs.

If you do a quick search for Adobe Town HMA you will most likely find the newly revised BLM map showing the much smaller HMA lines as revised by the newest 2023 Range Management Plan [RMP] for Rock Springs.

I was able to pull maps showing both the newly revised HMA lines as well as the older original HMA lines, and I encourage you to visit this area with the idea of the much larger original HMA lines, at this time there are still horses in the original HMA lands, and we are hoping against all odds that the judges will rule in the horses favor, keeping the larger HMA in place.

The above two maps are screen shots of the simplified original and revised HMA lines to help you sort it out for your adventure in this place.

Side note - these maps also show you the small portion of checkerboard lands and how much more than just the checkerboard land was taken away from this HMA in the newest RMP by BLM.

Today - per the BLM info page this HMA is 347,924 acres large, historically it was 478,000 acres big, a 130,076 loss of acreage from one of the larger HMAs in Wyoming.

The maps I am sharing to find your way across this expansive and seemingly endless land are going to show you the original unrevised HMA lines, because the lines only recently changed and they have not begun the removal yet, you will likely find horses anywhere within the old boundary lines.

If the court finds in favor of the horses the lines should be revised back to the original HMA, and even if it does rule against the horses I feel it is important to remember what once was, there are so many HMAs that have been lost and it is nearly impossible to find records of their existence, I do not want that to happen to Adobe Town too.

And now to our adventure... this one is going to be a little shorter I think, more because I am not knowledgeable enough than because of the HMA itself!

I am going to say this a lot... Adobe Town is incredibly beautiful!

It is varied with terrain of all kinds and it is one of the most beautiful places in WY that I have experienced. You will find tall grasses, colorful and fanciful badland formations, unique rock outcrops and bluffs, and some of the most gorgeous wild horses!

Adobe Town also has quite a bit of oil and gas energy development.... that can be very confusing when you are exploring at first, the roads to many of the wells look every bit as good as the main road, and sometimes you are down fairly far one those roads before you realize it is a dead end! But... sometimes there are wild horses out around those wells and it is a dead end well worth driving!

And then, there is the remote and stunning Wilderness Study part of the HMA - I made it there only once on an overnight camping trip and the impression was so strong that I do not need any photographs to relive the awe I felt in that land.

As I have already admitted, I do not have a lot of knowledge to help you explore this HMA, while I found it to be stunning and would love to spend so much more time in it, I have always lived too far away for it to be an easy drive to visit.

But still, I am determined to give it my best shot at helping you explore this incredibly amazing land, and find its amazing wild horses! So away we go....

The 'easiest' way I know into Adobe Town is going to be from the east side of the HMA from Hwy 789 that runs north/south between I80 and the town of Baggs WY - this is the only way I have gone in and it is the only way I have heard other photographers (that I know) talk about visiting this place.

If you are coming from Rawlins or Rock Springs on I80 you will exit the freeway at Creston Junction and head south towards Baggs.

If you are coming from Colorado or maybe one of the small towns along the border of WY and CO, you will head to Baggs and then north on Hwy 789 for a few miles.

Driving along Hwy 789 you want to drive at least 15 miles south of I80 before really beginning to look for a dirt road to head west into Adobe Town.... and probably closer to Baggs is a better bet, if you study the HMA lines that is going to help you decide which dirt road to take.

You also are going to want to make sure you take a well-used dirt road from the highway, the HMA itself is several miles from the highway, so you don't want a sketchy road that will quit on you before you get to wild horse territory!

Possible roads you could take.... Sand Creek Road is a well used road with several other attached roads that will allow you to explore the HMA, you travel about 10 miles from the highway before you reach the HMA on this road.

Little Robbers Gulch and Big Robbers Gulch roads look like decent possibilities to travel into Adobe Town, Standard Rd is the road furthest north from Baggs that might work for you to travel fairly easily into the HMA.

There are other roads of course, if you study Google Earth and/or have a WY Gazetteer that is going to help you figure some things out, nothing really substitutes being there in person though, nether Google or the Gazetteer can warn you that a road was washed out last winter!

No matter what road you choose, once you start your adventure you are going to find a maze of roads crisscrossing the land, remember it is an active oil and gas energy field, so you will have miles to explore and look for wild horses!

If you are wanting a little more adventure and more dirt roads then the southern area just might be more your style!

It is going to take a bit more time and map skills to find you way in along the southern border of the HMA, there are some dirt roads leaving Baggs that will take you there, or you may access it from along the CO border and driving a dirt road north - a part of the HMA sits on the CO border so it may not even be that long a drive!

This is when stopping in at a local restaurant and chatting it up with the locals may help you.... assuming you find someone that likes the wild horses - most like them but there are sheep ranchers in the area that will take pleasure in lecturing you about the destruction wild horses cause, but even the most cantankerous person will often give you good advice on which roads will get you to your destination safely.

So stop and grab a soda or snack and chat up the locals for some good adventure notes - most of us in WY are pretty protective of our wild places, but we also get excited to share with someone that asks about those wild places.

Accessing the HMA from the western side is really going to challenge you... the entire western area of Adobe Town is bordered by the much bigger HMA of Salt Wells Creek - the single largest HMA in WY (before the revision of the 2023 RMP), so - good luck!

I am not saying it is impossible, but to enter Adobe Town from the western side you are going to have to traverse through Salt Wells Creek, and this land has many natural barriers that require any existing roads to twist and turn through the deep canyons and across high ridge mountains, it is a uniquely beautiful land though.

To take this trip would require quite a bit of time and willingness to be lost in a very remote land... something that is exactly the thing I love doing, but because I have never lived less than 4hrs drive from this particular place, I have not had the chance (yet) to truly dig in and learn the secrets that this place and her wild horses know.

Assuming you do not have unlimited time, and are not super excited about being in a very remote land that just might leave you stranded in a rain storm, my recommendation is that you access Adobe Town from another direction and then work you way into the western area.

Having been a little bit in the western area I feel I should probably warn you that the horses to the west are incredibly wild.... they are there, I have seen them, but I have not one single image of them because they were faster than me grabbing my camera while coasting to a stop on a very questionable 2-track.

Ooohhhh but the image burned into my heart from this place - a stunning white stallion lit like fire by late afternoon sun as he galloped through chest high golden grass, the mysterious badlands rising out of the sands in the distance, as he and his family disappeared into the dust rising from their galloping wild hooves across a land they know to be their own.

And now we are ready to explore the northern area of the HMA!

This part of Adobe Town is again bordered by the Salt Wells Creek [SWC] HMA, but you don't have to access it through SWC unless you just want to take on that challenge, and if you have already taken one of the dirt roads off of Hwy 287 to enter on the eastern side of Adobe Town, you may have already found your way into this area.

In theory, you could also take a road from Wamsutter south to the northern edge of Adobe Town, I can see a road or two on the map and they look like fairly decent roads, given the energy development in that area it is a pretty good bet the road is well-used.

I might not recommend that particular route from Wamsutter, unless you really just want to kick back and enjoy a long drive along the way to the HMA.... as the crow flies it is only about 20 miles to Adobe Town, but as a human forced to follow whatever course those roads take, it could be quite a bit longer journey.

So here we are, at the end of our adventure in Adobe Town HMA, and while I could not give you detailed directions to find the wild horses or exactly which are the best roads to drive, maybe that is okay, because this place has a magic that is perhaps best discovered in your own way.

It is a land of mystery that few wild horse photographers traverse, and its daunting wild expanse leaves much of it unexplored except by the most intrepid of humans - I hope that you get the chance to be one of those humans, I hope that you get to travel to the wildest parts and experience the wild magic that happens in those most hidden places.... with the wildest of wild horses!

*** We are adding to this blog post after the initial publishing in order to add information about exploring Adobe Town HMA, generously shared with us by Brenda Myers, a wild horse photographer and fellow wild places adventurer!

"To get to the west side, if you take Bitter Creek Road (19) it will take you through SWC and up the Pine Butte to Adobe Town. Not long after you top out on the mountain there will be a man made waterhole to the right, and you will often find very wild horses there. ...... . a few miles after you see the waterhole look for BLM Road 4412.

Turn right here and keep heading south towards the Colorado border -- there are periodic signs, it's wild country and you may or may not run into wild horses.

You'll go through some private land and pass right through someone's ranch corrals, but it is public road, after this you'll go through some cool badlands, as you approach the state line you'll get into more up and down hilly terrain.

The map will show a Shell Creek Stock Road... this is the old stagecoach road and looks like a shortcut to Baggs - -it is not unless you really like Class III adventures! You'll top out on a mesa and start heading down to the state line, look off the the east down two tracks and you'll likely see horses down here at Upper Powder Wash Spring, and maybe be able to get to them.

Continuing to the border you'll pass Lower Powder Wash spring and maybe catch some horses here, once you get to the border you can turn left or right (the road is now Colorado 68) on CR4 which will take you to Baggs to the east or 430 to the west.

I ... would recommend that you go a little further south and explore the ghost town of Powder Wash, which was inhabited until the late 1990's, if you keep going south through Powder Wash you'll go over another mountain and end up in Colorado's Sand Wash Basin HMA. You'll find horses all throughout this country - Wild, magnificent horses that you'll probably only see once in your life."

We hope this added information helps you find your adventure in Adobe Town!