Today we begin our adventure into the HMA of Dishpan Butte.... this is the fourth and last HMA in the North Lander Complex, and although not planned to have gone in this order, it is fitting that I should finish this set of explore series in this HMA.

Dishpan Butte is where I saw my first ever Wyoming wild horse, I knew they existed and I knew they were somewhere in Wyoming, but I had only lived in WY for about six months and was pretty clueless how to find them.... until one day driving the highway from Jackson to Cheyenne there they were - wild horses!

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Because a wildly wild stallion and his mustang family caught my eye and sparked something deep in my soul, my life forever changed, and it began here.

Dishpan Butte HMA is a pretty HMA, with terrain varying from sage scattered hills, dramatic rocky buttes and plateaus, high grassy ridges with deep valleys, and surrounding views of wild Wyoming beauty.

It claims almost a hundred thousand acres in its borders, most of that being BLM public lands, with an assigned low AML of 50 and high AML of 100 horses - an absurdly low number of horses for the miles of public lands here.

It also is an HMA with the unique distinction of being split apart, a busy highway cutting across it and leaving one small part of the HMA completely isolated from all other HMAs, and the few wild horses in that isolated island completely dependent on each other for survival.

All but one of my images in this blog are of Dishpan Butte West, it was unintentional when I selected the images and I did not even realize until adding them in, but it is also not surprising as the isolated western island of Dishpan Butte is always in my thoughts these days..... many of the images are from before the roundup and removal in 2024, with a few of the small family band and lone bachelor that lives here now.

The wild horses of Dishpan Butte have their own unique look and attitude.... you may see flashy sorrels with blazes and stockings, handsome bays with long black manes, a few beautiful dappled greys, some pretty pintos, and at least one gorgeous and resilient little palomino mare.

And every single one of them has a wild attitude!

Dishpan Butte is not terribly difficult to access... in fact you can travel quite a few miles easily, with some parts even accessible by a regular passenger vehicle - as long as you stay on the main dirt road!

You can take the more challenging trek and long way into Dishpan Butte via Cedar Rim Rd that crosses through Muskrat Basin and Rock Creek HMAs, which is discussed in the previous blog for Rock Creek Mountain HMA.

But sometimes it is nice to do it the easy way - you can most easily access this HMA either from Hwy 135 between Sweetwater Station and Riverton, or from Hwy 287 between Sweetwater Station and Lander, all of these entrances are easy to find along the highway and begin with pretty fair dirt roads.

If you are like me and love exploring the unknown you will end up on roads that require a good rig with clearance and rugged tires... and if you go far enough you will need that sense of adventure too!

Dishpan Butte seems easy enough when first beginning your trek and will stay so for several miles, but like any land in Wyoming, eventually it takes you into places that range anywhere from a little bit sketchy, to your travel guardian working extra hard to see you make it out in one piece!

My guardians are quite exhausted after 15yrs exploring wild horse territory!

Dishpan Butte HMA is split by a well-used highway with a fence running along both sides of the highway, ensuring that the mustangs do not cross onto the highway itself, unfortunately there has been some fool that left a gate open and wild horses have recently been hit and killed on this highway - so I am asking that when you explore here, PLEASE make sure that any and all gates near a highway are closed!!

If you have followed me long on FB or IG you have seen me reference this HMA as Dishpan Butte West or as Dishpan Butte East when sharing the lives of the horses or discussing BLM management of the mustangs.

Because the split of Dishpan Butte HMA does affect these horses and how you may explore I am also splitting this adventure guide for you.

Dishpan Butte East

This is the largest section of the HMA, and is also the part of the HMA that is connected to the other three HMAs of Conant Creek, Rock Creek, and Muskrat Basin.

It is where you will see the most diverse mix of wild horses.... of course these horses do (or are supposed to) have the ability to wander across and mix with the horses of the other three HMAs.

I am not sure how much they wander and mix.... I have never run along the edges of this HMA after cows are gone for the year (it is usually too snowy in winter to get far into the HMA), so am not sure how consistently the gates are left open to allow the horses to wander, mix, and mingle with each other.

Or if the horses choose to not wander even if gates are open... it takes years of consistent documentation to know something like that for sure.

These horses have a big range, bigger than we initially think because of the deep valleys and rocky hills and small mountains that easily conceal them, so those that prefer to avoid humans can do so easily!

There is a fairly large oil field a few miles in from the highway, and as there are maintained water sources for cows in summer nearby, you will find a few mustang family bands that stay in this area, and while they will put on a show for you in the first few minutes of your appearance, they usually settle in and go back to their day, keeping one eye on you to make sure you do not try to sneak up on them!

So - let us begin our journey... there are a few ways to enter into the eastern section of Dishpan Butte - all of them are nearest to the Sweetwater Station rest area, a great place to stop and use the bathroom, but there is absolutely no gas or store so you will want to make sure to fill up your rig and stock up on snacks and water from which ever town you last pass through - Rawlins, Muddy Gap, Lander, or Riverton!

Alrighty, you are fueled up, stocked up, and ready for adventure!

We begin on a 2-track that is found just about two miles north of Sweetwater Station on Hwy 135 - it is on your right (east) side of the highway and is in the above map screenshot, it is a well used 2-track with a cattle guard crossing so you do not have to worry about any gates!!

Just know that this road only travels along a few miles of the very southern edge of Dishpan Butte East, the fence on the south side of the dirt road marks the HMA border, you may occasionally see horses that have crossed over the fence - don't worry they will find their way back into the HMA!

Traveling this road takes you in the direction of one of the ranches out here, but there are a few two tracks going north that you can travel and look for horses a little bit, or other wildlife - especially badgers!

Please be careful of the badgers.... typically I find them to be good company, they usually keep doing what badgers do once they have made sure I am not a threat, but I have also had badgers chuff at me in warning, and as they can very quickly shred your tires in a most distressing way, I do not recommend testing their temperament!

The next 2-track in is about 4.5 miles north of Sweetwater Station, on your right (east) side of the highway as seen in the above map screenshot, it also has a cattle-guard crossing so no gates!

I get really excited when I don't have to open and close gates!

This 2-track starts out like a nice well-used road, but it does not go terribly far, and I have not seen a lot of mustangs in this particular area, there are just too many fences to make it an easy place for them to travel, the most mustangs I have observed here was immediately after the 2024 roundup operations left the horses unsettled, and they were trying to figure life out after the upheaval of the removal.

But, there are draws with water nearby and I know that historically at least a few wild horses made their way into those, so occasionally I will drive the 2-tracks to the north and look for horses in the little draws and washes that hide them so well.

Okay, now for the absolute easiest (and best) way to explore Dishpan Butte East!

Just about 7 miles north of Sweetwater Station you are going to find well-used dirt roads on either side of the highway - one goes into Dishpan Butte West and the other goes into Dishpan Butte East.

At this moment we are going to take the one into Dishpan Butte East.

You will see a nice big BLM sign telling you this is Cedar Rim Rd - the same one that goes all the way across the three HMAs and out to Ore Rd in Muskrat Basin.

But you do not have to follow it all the way out today.... today you want to spend your time exploring in Dishpan Butte East!

Turning right (east) off Highway 135 and onto Cedar Rim Rd you cross a cattle guard and are now in the wild horse territory of Dishpan Butte East!

You have thousands of public land acres to wander and explore here.... no worries about private land for miles!

There is a section of private land out here, but you have to travel quite a ways into the HMA before finding it, and for those that explore that deep I imagine you have the GPS or other tools to know when you are approaching privately owned property.

Cedar Rim Rd is the main road through here, it is going to take you up and around to an active oil field - the oil field is the reason this road is usually kept plowed in winter, with only the harshest of winters forcing them to give up and use snow-mobiles to check on wells and equipment.

In 10+ years of driving this route I have seen only two winters that harsh.

My husband and I explored here one winter when everything else was snowed in, it was snowy here but plowed and I am always a little bit braver when he goes with me - it helps if you have someone that can throw on tire chains or help dig out of a bad spot!

We found some fun things on the ridges above the oil field, but it does require going through the oil field itself and navigating the maze of roads around the equipment - this is where being married to a heavy haul driver that is often in oil fields comes in handy, he knows how to read the road mazes better than me and decipher which ones might go somewhere rather than dead ending at a well.

He also has taught me terms like lay-down yard and how to recognize other things out in the field around mining, which then helps me understand what it may mean for the immediate future of the land and the wild horses.

Anyways, if you do find yourself wandering through the oil field hopefully you find a trail up to the ridges above, and maybe you might find mustangs under the trees with a breeze whisking away bugs on a hot summer afternoon.

I do not have much here in the way of specific directions for you once you start down this road into Dishpan Butte East, the horses here were nomadic even before the roundup in 2024.

In winter they may be seen along high ridges above rocky buttes where winds sweep away the winter snow and make foraging slightly easier for them.

In summer finding water is your best bet, but they have options out here - there are rancher maintained wells, snow filled reservoirs, and natural springs that run in small streams - if the winter had deep snows or if it is a rainy summer mustangs may be considerably more difficult to find.

There are several decent 2-tracks to travel that will take you in almost any direction in the HMA, the tracks do tend to get a bit sketchy the further you travel along them, especially if they run through any washes or boggy areas, in those instances you really just want to decipher if they come out on the other side or not - you may need to park and walk if you have spied any wild horses.

And of course the main road you came in on, Cedar Rim Rd, travels all the way through and out to the other complex HMAs - just remember that you will need time, a good 4x4 rig with clearance and rugged tires, along with at least some 4x skills - I cannot emphasize enough that this trail has some spots that are not for the inexperienced!

But really, just go in the direction you feel the wind taking you.... the horses may be shy but they know you are looking for them and they may just surprise you when you least expect it, and those surprises have led to some of my most favorite experiences!

Oh - and if you are into rocks, this area is one of the favorite places for rock hunters to rock hound, so make sure to take a walk and find something pretty that calls your name, and take it home with you!

Dishpan Butte West

This land holds a place in my heart unlike anywhere else.... it is where I first met the beautiful wild stallion that led to my life forever changing.

It is a land that I drove by for years on my way to explore the Bighorn Basin before we moved to Cody, and then I drove through it again from our home in Cody on my way back to the Red Desert, it is now about 90 minutes from our home in Thermopolis and is part of my regular drive to the desert, and sometimes it is my only destination on a sunny winter afternoon.

It is where the horses stood by the highway in dusky evening light with me the night before I attended a roundup and removal of wild horses in the Red Desert. I will never forget their kindness of lending me grace and strength that evening....

It is a land that is isolated from all other HMAs, it is a land that is limited and fenced and when winter is bitter there is no other place they can go to survive. And because of that in the brutal unforgiving winter of 2022/23 it is a land that saw many wild horses perish in the deep snows....

There was no kindness offered by any human, no hay or feed of any kind was brought to a herd that stood in several feet of snow with bitter winds bringing temperatures to -60 degrees on the really bad days, and to -20 on the not so bad days.

It was a winter that began early in November and did not end until late April.

And after all that, after those mustangs that somehow found a way to survive and live to bring new life into this land, man came with their helicopters and took all but one of them and sent them away to metal barred corrals - 25 horses that had once been as many as 50 horses had survived one of the most brutal winters on record in Wyoming, and their reward was for man to steal them away with no acknowledgment of what they had endured or that nature had already cruelly culled their herd.

Yes, I have many strong feelings about Dishpan Butte West and its wild horses.

Today it is your turn to drive these dirt roads and meet the horses that live here now.... it is your turn to find a place to sit with them and let them share with you their story.

It is an especially important story in the story of all wild horses.

The exploring of Dishpan Butte West is mostly pretty dang easy.... there are three best ways in, with all three meeting within the HMA and giving you the option to travel all the way across and out of the HMA on a well used and well maintained dirt road - on a dry sunny day you could easily travel through even in a regular passenger car.

Sometimes you may spy wild horses from the highway - not always close to the highway, but perhaps on the skyline with the Wind River Mountains rising behind them in the horizon.

And sometimes they will surprise you right next to the highway!

Okay lets get started.... first road in is just about a mile north of Sweetwater Station on your left (west), there is a BLM sign that says Carmody Lake - be aware that when the winter snows are deep, you will not be able to travel all the way through on this road in spring, as Carmody Lake floods over a part of the road for about a month or so.

But, even when I know the road is impassible I like to drive up on the ridge just off the highway, you will see a 2-track on the curve of the dirt road as you reach the top of the hill, driving out and parking on that 2-track at the edge of the ridge allows you to glass across almost half of this HMA area, and you may often spy the wild horses.

It is tempting to think it easier to just drive the dirt road that cuts across the hills, but because of the high ridges and deep valleys I have found it smarter to look for the horses, and then figure out how to approach them.

It was from this ridge that I watched, through binoculars, four of the mustangs that had been released after the 2024 BLM removal, they were not at all interested in human company then so I felt lucky I was able to observe even from that distance.

After you have looked across the hills and spied horses, or maybe only pronghorn and cows, you can continue on down the dirt road, it travels across the ridge and may be hiding the horses you could not find a few minutes ago, soon you will find yourself winding down towards Carmody Lake.

A word about the lake.... it is a shallow natural lake and in dry years there may be very little or no water in it, usually there is enough water that birds such as Pelicans, ducks, and various other water birds can be found in spring and early summer, the area around the lake is fenced and is noted to be a habitat study area.

In the years I have been traveling here I have not once found a horse at the lake, but in summer the cows congregate here as if for a Sunday morning sermon - I would think cows should not be in here if it is a habitat study area, but no one ever seems to move them away from the lake, I don't know where they get in as it is fenced and there are gates at the cattle-guards that I have never seen open, but there must be a spot cause the cows love hanging out here!

It is one of the oddities you will find if you spend enough time in wild horse lands, there are lakes or other seemingly obvious and natural places to drink water, but sometimes wild horses avoid those places except in extreme drought... this lake would seem to be one of them, if the cows can get in you know a horse could too, and obviously I am not there 24/7, but from my observation the horses prefer to drink from other water sources found in this area - either natural or human maintained.

Okay, so you made it past the lake and are meandering your way along the dirt road, once you have left the habitat study area you will notice a 2-track or two meandering out into the hills, this is a good place to drive out on the little ridges and look again for horses, it is one of those weird things that the ridges sit just right and allow you to see a little bit better into a hidden draw than from one of the higher up ridges.

As you continue on the main road you will soon reach the 3-way intersection where Carmody Lake road meets up with the Hudson-Atlantic City Rd, if you turn left you are only a couple of miles from Hwy 287, or you can turn right and explore deeper into Dishpan Butte West and eventually out to Hwy 135 - all roads lead to a highway exit!

Our next way in is going to be from Highway 287, via the Hudson-Atlantic City road, found just about 5 miles west of Sweetwater Station.

If you have been following along with me for very long you know of the young stallion I call Wovoka the Ghost Dancer... he was born and lived his first few years wild in Muskrat Basin HMA, he was captured and removed from there in the 2024 BLM roundup and removal, and a few months later was released into this island of Dishpan Butte West - things happened and Wovoka soon found himself walking this fence-line along Highway 287 and has been walking it for over a year now.

He often stands observing traffic passing by, and as people have learned his story many now stop to visit with him.... the story of Wovoka is a story that many mustangs experience in the chaos of roundup and removal.

Wovoka refuses to follow the natural and expected behavior of a horse to join with other horses here, choosing instead to pace along this fence that runs by a busy highway where tourists drive by on their vacation and locals come and go in their daily routine, thousands of humans observing a mustang stallion that will forever live with the very real and undeniable consequences of human made demands on the land and its wild horses.

Of things that I cannot explain of Wovoka's life is that while he continues to haunt the fence-line along Hwy 287 he is not always alone.... I have observed an unknown stallion join him for several weeks, a pair of Bald Eagles keeping his company, and a herd of cows surrounding him in a way that is not normal in the wild away from a water hole.

A friend also observed the lone bay stallion of this land with him one day.... the mares were not with them, just the bay stallion seeming to be visiting with Wovoka.

These are only the ones I know of myself but I have no doubt there are others that come and stay with him when he most needs the company of a friend.

It has been my observation that these visits seem to occur when Wovoka is tired and at his thinnest.... often when I am worried that he may not be much longer for this earth if he does not give up walking the fence and move into the hills where forage and water are more easily found - where he might keep company with the other wild horses of this land.

Wovoka seems to find peace and comfort from these visits, growing stronger in spirit after each of them, and he continues along the trail that knows his hooves so well, how much longer he will walk this path I do not know.

So, as you are driving along this stretch of highway, go slower than the posted speed limit, and if you see Wovoka stop and sit with him while.... and know that what he has to share with you is important.

So now here we are, turning right (north) and crossing a cattle-guard and traveling along the Hudson-Atlantic City Rd into Dishpan Butte West, you are only a few miles from the Carmody Lake turn, or going straight and following this road through the heart of Dishpan Butte West and eventually out to Hwy 135.

There are a couple of decent 2-tracks to explore in the hills surrounding you.... one of my favorite 2-tracks is at the Carmody Lake intersection, it will take you up through the hills and to the top of the ridge above, the track does get a little bit rutty higher up, but if you are in a rig with clearance and good tires you will be okay - I would not recommend this 2-track when it is muddy!

And finally, the route I most often take to visit Dishpan Butte West, it is not usually the best route for locating wild horses the fastest, it is simply the most convenient to me as I pass by this entrance first when traveling from our home in Thermopolis... and I also really just enjoy the drive.

Okay, so the 3rd way into Dishpan Butte West is at that intersection 7 miles north of Sweetwater Station, the one where there are dirt roads on either side of Hwy 135 and you can choose to go to Dishpan Butte East or Dishpan Butte West - this time we are turning left (west) onto the Hudson-Atlantic City road to play in Dishpan Butte West!

Once you cross the cattle guard you are in the wild horse territory of Dishpan Butte West, this is all public land, no worries about any private property boundaries!

This dirt road is easy to follow and fairly well maintained, you do want to watch out for random surprise 'gotcha gulleys' after winter snow melt or heavy thunderstorm rains that happen often in this land.

You will quickly find the road splitting with the option of going straight, which in a few miles takes you to the edge of the HMA and another cattle guard - once you cross that cattle guard you have left the HMA, and the vast land below the rim is a mix of private and public lands with mostly cows and no wild horses.

You can follow a 2-track that runs north along the edge of the rim, if you have not already spied any horses with binocs you are unlikely to find any here, but the views are very pretty, and if you like rocks this is a good place to park and take a walk, picking up the pretty stones that call your name!

There is also a 2-track running south towards the butte, I thought it a fun little side trip to explore and it takes you around towards the back of the butte, but it does dead end and you have to back-track. But it might be a good place to camp if you are looking to spend the night under the stars with grand vistas!

Back to where the road split....

If you hang a left (south) and follow that road it will take you through the heart of Dishpan Butte West, there are a few 2-tracks that can be taken to explore the hills and even to the top of the butte - I have yet to encounter mustangs on the butte but I have seen their sign and really I just love how pretty it is at the top with a faint 2-track winding around the trees and over-looking miles and miles of vistas.

As you continue along the main dirt road you wander down and past an old windmill and then up a hill and across a cattle guard - as this is all BLM public land and wild horse HMA the fence and gate here is for cattle grazing allotments, the gates are usually left open fall through spring so that the horses can move freely through their HMA, I have noticed the gate is sometimes open even before the cows leave and am not sure if that is intentional or random.

The dirt road continues along through the grassy hills, and although it seems like you could see any horses for miles, the draws are deceptively deep and it is amazing how well the horses can hide in these places!

There are a number of 2-tracks you can explore along the way, some are fairly easy to follow, some kind of just meander off into the grass and randomly cease to exist - I have criss-crossed these 2-tracks on lazy days trying to figure them out, and only by tracking them on my OnX app can I keep track of what was already travelled and find my way back to the main dirt road - these sloping hills all look the same and despite the seemingly small area you can get confused and end up a long ways from where you thought you were going!

As you travel along the dirt road you will slowly drop down from the high ridges, wandering along the lower hills and will soon find a small reservoir to the south of the road, in early spring this area can be fairly wet as snows drift deep here and melt slow, if there is going to be a muddy spot on your trip this will be it, so be cautious after rains or if snow is still melting.

You also want to drive a little bit slower as horses may be at this reservoir, and if you approach slowly enough they may be okay with your presence, rather than taking off at a wild gallop into their hills away from you.

After the reservoir you will soon find the intersection where all dirt roads meet... to the south takes you through the Carmody Lake habitat study area and - if the lake is not flooded across the road - out to Hwy 135 just above Sweetwater Station.

If you go straight at the intersection you are only a few miles from the exit to Highway 287 that is just a few miles west of Sweetwater Station.

Before I wrap up this blog I want to talk about the horses that call Dishpan Butte West their home - their story is one that needs to be known.

Their future is one that is tenuous at best, not because of anything they have done, but because man has made capricious and careless decisions for these horses.

The horses of Dishpan Butte West are entirely dependent on each other for survival... they do not have the ability to mix and mingle with the other wild horses of the North Lander Complex - two fences and a busy highway ensure that fact.

As their land is a plateau rising above the plains below, with storms drifting in from the Wind River Mountains and winds whipping through the sage, it is an especially unkind place to be when winters are real.

And when I asked, the BLM Wild Horse Specialist assured me that the horses did not cross fences and travel to the hills below the rim.

In the summer of 2022 I knew there to be 40 or 50 wild horses wandering this land... not enough of a number to be genetically viable by scientific measures, but they were healthy and thriving, with little family bands scattered around and bachelor stallions roaming between those family bands, living their best life in this little island.

In fact, if one considers that these horses have limited resources in foraging and water, while sharing their land with pronghorn, deer, and cows, and that they have to act with caution and reason in who they mate with for the sake of herd health, it is really quite a striking testament to how very smart mustangs are and how capable they are of reasoning out things in a way that ensures not only their long term survival, but their ability to thrive in adverse conditions.

The snows started in November 2022, with wicked winds and bitter cold temperatures, and snow kept falling through April 2023.

The workers of the oilfield in Dishpan Butte East abandoned the dirt road and took snowmobiles in to check their equipment... the highway itself was often barely passible or just simply closed to all traffic, there were days I drove it white-knuckled as the winds whipped the snows into deep drifts across this normally busy highway.

I watched for the horses along the highway... at first they were easily found on those high wind-swept ridges, but as the winter went along they disappeared, and I wondered if they had found somewhere to survive or if....

I never found their bodies, honestly I did not really look, after finding too many mustangs lost to the winter in the Red Desert I could not look in the face of more death, and the horses themselves began to hide their bodies from me.

What I know is that where there was once 40 or 50 wild horses, there were now 20 some wild horses left walking the hills.... these survivors - they are the toughest of the tough, they are resilient in a way that very few humans can imagine, these horses take being mustang strong to an entirely different level.

These mustangs should have never been removed from wild lands, they hold deep in their bones the secrets and wisdom that is necessary for wild horses to be the mustang that survives and thrives in the face of all the things that attempt to destroy them.

A stallion I called Leonidas.... he was one of the survivors of the 2022/23 winter.

He was removed by BLM on July 4 2024

July 4 2024, helicopters came and rounded up all but one of the survivors.... one lone stallion wandering separately watched as the other 25 wild horses of this land were chased into a trap and taken away in a trailer.

That was it.... the survivors of the harshest winter in decades lost their freedom because man could not share the land with them.

Several months later, November 2024, two stallions and two mares were released into this little island. BLM had decided that having three stallions and two mares would be sufficient, with the expectation that the two mares would foal in spring.

Both mares were treated with two doses of Gonacon fertility control while in holding and are not expected to foal again for two or more years following that treatment.

BLMs plan was to introduce new blood and genetics into this small herd, they do this often, releasing a mustang from another nearby HMA or a far away HMA, under the reasoning of keeping the herd genetics healthy.

That is a discussion for another day.

Today I want to discuss the complete failure of BLM staff to recognize the need for those survivors knowledge to remain in the wild, and their failure to ensure actual genetic viability in this now very small herd.

It has been my unfortunate experience that BLM staff refuse to acknowledge that there are horses that should be left wild, to be clear I detest all removals, but in my inability to stop them I always hope that mustangs with deep knowledge of the land in winter and summer, the wisdom of where to go for survival and thriving, and the ability to reason through whatever may face them - all mustangs are incredible beings - but like humans some excel at leadership and teaching of younger generations the things that allow them to not just barely survive, but to fully thrive in their wild lands.

And then there is the astonishing lack of attention to detail.... remember that the idea behind allowing only five wild horses in Dishpan Butte West was that most or all released here would not be related to each other.

Except.... that three of the currently known living five adults in this island are from this island originally - in sorting through old images I found her, the mare that I did not think was from here, except that there she was, looking at me just the same as she looks at me now, the stunning sorrel girl is one of the winter survivors.

Was it on purpose that two mares from this same island were returned to it post removal? Knowing that one stallion was also still here?

I don't know... when we were at the release I recall the specialist mentioning to me that I 'probably recognized the palomino girl from before', but we did not talk about the leggy sorrel girl or if he knew she was from here originally.

Of the two stallions released with the mares, after a gate was left open one of them was hit and killed on the highway, the other you know as Wovoka.... at this time Wovoka is the only wild horse with unrelated genetics living in this island.

The fifth adult wild horse in this isolated island is an unknown, the sorrel stallion that held company with Wovoka for a few weeks and then disappeared, it is likely he is one of the original winter survivors, but I have not been able to verify that with certainty.

His appearance and disappearance are curious and just go to show how some wild horses can be so very elusive and hidden in their wild lands - I have no doubt that had the Wild Horse Specialist known about this stallion before the release in November 2024, he would have returned even fewer mustangs to this island.

Understand - I am so very relieved that there are survivors still free in this land - but.... with what is now five horses (counting the two foals born that were conceived before the roundup) related to each other in one way or another, and only one stallion known to not be at all related, the genetics - quite frankly - are fucked.

What do I think should have been done differently?

Can this still be corrected to ensure a healthy herd?

1) More than four mustangs should have been released initially, even if not one of these horses were related to each other, 3 stallions and 2 mares is a disaster waiting to happen, on more levels than I mean to discuss in this blog.

Why did I not argue at the time of removal and return? Honestly, I was afraid if I got too argumentative in the beginning there would be no wild horses returned here at all.

And then there was a very angry discussion between me and the specialist regarding how many Rock Creek Mountain mustangs were returned and I was reminded very clearly how very much the specialist does not like his decisions to be questioned.

Which leaves me with the lingering fear that even this discussion may result in all of them eventually being taken away from this western island permanently.

2) Releasing additional mustangs here is still the best possible answer.... both more mares and more stallions.

How many? That is a discussion for another day and depends on how it is managed.... but really, within this small and very accessible area, this would be the perfect place to start a regular fertility control darting program (preferably PZP), like what has existed in the McCullough Peaks mustang herd for years, allowing more horses for a healthier herd and controlling herd growth so as to not out-grow the available forage.

And that is it.... my best advice on how to explore and my knowledge of these horses.

I know this particular blog is long and has much more than adventure and exploration, but all of it felt necessary - that these horses story especially needed to be told.

There are not many advocates who have gone back to visit these horses since the 2024 roundup and removal, and the story of them after is every bit as important as the before, the ones that still wander wild are threatened by future removals - we must continue to be a witness for them even in the painful after, for the sake of their future.

I hope that this blog has given you a sense of these horses and their land, I hope that you soon find yourself wandering these dirt roads and 2-tracks, that you find a spot to sit in the dirt and feel the sacredness of their land - may you find exactly the adventure that was meant to be yours in the company of wild horses, wild things, and wild places!