McCullough Peaks HMA.... one of the most well-known, photographed, and loved wild horse ranges in the world, rivaled in popularity by maybe one or two other HMAs, with mustangs that are incredibly beautiful and every horse wandering the HMA being known by those who spend their time with them.

And as one of the most famous wild horse territories, it is unlikely there are many of you that do not already know it, have not already visited it, or maybe even live nearby and spend quite a bit of time in it. But like Pryor Mountain, I found it to be a little bit confusing my first couple of visits.... so if it helps just one person find their own adventure, then it is worth the time writing this!

So lets go explore the McCullough Peaks!

McCullough Peaks HMA is just around 20mins to the east of Cody WY along the Wild Horse / Greybull Highway, making it a popular tourist adventure for many that are traveling to Cody for a visit to Yellowstone NP, and there are businesses that offer tours to those unfamiliar with the area or without a vehicle to travel the dirt roads.

I do not personally know any of the tour guides so cannot offer any recommendation.

Unless you are completely without a vehicle though, you do not absolutely have to have someone be a tour guide for the McCullough Peaks, it does of course help if you only have a few hours to go and want to increase your odds of seeing the horses.

But in truth, on a day when the horses are feeling anti-social, even the best of tour guides cannot guarantee you will have the chance to find a wild horse any closer than your binoculars can see.

You may also often hear McCullough Peaks referred to as the McCulloughs, the Peaks, or sometimes the McPeaks - these nick-names are most often used by those that spend much of their time there, I now mostly say 'the Peaks' but may randomly use any of those three names.

This HMA is not as big as the HMAs I spend most of my time in, but is still big enough to get a little bit turned around in, and some of the roads, if you go far enough away from the main dirt road, can get just a bit extra - it is on one of those roads I bent the tailpipe of my FJ coming through a wash - that was in an area few other humans travel though, and few of the horses will be found there either.

McCullough Peaks has the distinction of being an HMA that has actually expanded in size in recent history, during her time as the Wild Horse Specialist in the Cody BLM field office, Tricia Hatle worked to achieve this change and it was formally completed in 2015 - the HMA today is 10,000+ acres bigger than it used to be!

My first visit to the Peaks was in July 2012, we were not yet living in Cody and were playing tourist with plans to spend time in Yellowstone, I had been visiting wild horses for about a year then and wanted to meet the famous wild horses of the Peaks - especially we hoped to see the incredibly gorgeous stallion Washakie!

I still wonder at how lucky we were with the few hours we had to explore here, and we only had my Ford Taurus car to drive, so there was no venturing off of the main dirt road known as Whistle Creek!

As we drove along the road the vistas alone were amazing.... the colorful badland hills, the tall grasses, the distant mountain skylines, all in late afternoon light that felt like pure magic on our first visit - a memory burned into my soul in such a way that I do not need to look at any of my images to remember.

A few miles in and there they were..... the horses of McCullough Peaks - and.... wow, how could we possibly have won the lottery of wild horses so easily - Washakie!!!

The herd had been in to water and were beginning to meander back out for the evening - and then I did the thing that I now know was just a bit too risky and not so smart, but sometimes when you are new to wild horses, and especially in the Peaks where the horses are used to seeing crazy silly naive tourists, it happens.

We had parked the car and walked out into the grass along the road - remember - I was used to Red Desert wild horses that have a certain preference of distance from humans and always kept me at that distance, so now here I am in the Peaks wandering further away from the road into the sage and grass happily capturing images of these gorgeous horses, marveling at how calm they were with us being there, not one single thought crossing my mind of what was about to happen.

The horses had their own plans for the evening, where they wanted to be was on the other side of me, so the entire herd lazily moved around me, and I found myself standing in the midst of a herd of wild horses.....

As they continued on their way, ever so casually as if nothing out of the ordinary had at all happened (and to them it had not), they eventually filled the sky line along a ridge as they walked away into the evening to do what ever it is wild horses do when it is too dark for human eyes to spy on them.

**I am going to be boring here for a minute.... I will forever treasure that moment of immersion with the wild horses, but as I look back at it with perspective of several more years experience, I am also mortified that it happened - I should have been more aware and moved myself out of their way!!!

It is easy to get caught up in these moments, so very easy to want to stay in that place of magic, but - wild horses are exactly that - wild! They do not have the knowledge to understand they can wound us beyond repair with one single kick, bite, or body movement - that understanding only comes with time, training, and experience!!

How do I know? Because I now live with three gentled mustangs and it has taken time and experience for them to understand that what is normal to them is harmful to the much more easily breakable human.... just like humans they need time to learn, they do not have magical instant knowledge of us and how to physically interact with us.

Peaks horses are shockingly familiar with humans, and because of that they both play and fight dangerously close to us, it is especially dangerous when the stallions begin fighting - it take only one unintentional sharp kick to put you in the hospital, or worse!

If in that perfect moment I was experiencing, any of the horses suddenly spooked or just reared up or kicked in play, I would have been seriously harmed.

Alright - end of lecture, I know not much fun to read, I just want help you have the best possible visit without any accidental injuries ruining the experience!

The Peaks is one of the most easily accessed HMAs with many different entrances and most are found on the southern side along the Wild Horse / Greybull Highway.

Whistle Creek is the most well-known and is maintained really nicely, it will take you all the way through the HMA, with many very nice 2-tracks that can be taken in most regular vehicles, not really a passenger car but anything that has decent tires and a little bit of ground clearance.

There are parts of the Peaks that are a bit more 'country' though.... a 4x4 and high clearance rigs are recommended for those parts, unless you really just want to wreck your rig for some reason!

And as always for pretty much every HMA in Wyoming - do not go when it is muddy!

Really, I mean it, the Peaks has a very different kind of mud, and that nicely graveled main road turns into a really nasty thing that is like a thick axle grease kind of mud when it is raining or the snow is melting!

One of my favorite 2-tracks is the above one that crosses Dry Creek, you will find it just a few miles to the east of the Whistle Creek entrance, it has a cattle guard so no gates to worry about opening or closing, and it is a pretty good 2-track to follow out into the HMA, you will have to pick and choose how far you go, where you turn, or maybe just to park and walk if you don't have a rig with some clearance and decent tires.

There are a few other 2-track entrances along the highway on the south side of the HMA, some have cattle guards and some have gates - please be sure to ALWAYS close any gates you open along the highway!!

One of the nice things about the Peaks is that there are usually signs telling you that you are entering into the HMA, making it a lot easier to know if you are actually exploring wild horse territory, rather than just guessing at if you will find them!

If you keep driving east on the highway you will see a visitors kiosk that was created and is maintained by the group FOAL (Friends of a Legacy), this is a group that has been in Cody for many years with a unique working relationship with the local BLM filed office. FOAL offers education about the horses to visitors and they help to improve or maintain things for the horses on the range, such as cleaning out the man-built reservoirs or bringing in water during drought years, and they have helped with documentation of the horses both on and off the range, this was incredibly important during the removal of mustangs in 2023.

So if you have the time, I encourage you to stop here for a bit, they also have an interactive trail to walk, and quite often you may see many of the Peaks horses north of the kiosk and trail near Bridger Butte - so have your binoculars ready!

You can also access the Peaks from the eastern edge along Hwy 32 going north, several people like to go in at what is called the 'gravel pit' - and I have to say that is a really great way to come in, for years I did not know about this entrance and took the more difficult 2-tracks in from south of Bridger Butte, the gravel pit entrance is a thousand times easier and quicker to drive in!!

There is another entrance further north on Hwy 32 that is Lane 24, I used to travel that road quite a bit, when I lived in Cody I would take that road just for an afternoon drive after work.... but, you do have to drive a few miles in to reach the HMA, and although the horses do occasionally travel down into the badland areas, it is not common to find them down there, I mostly just enjoyed the drive through the colorful badlands, and the occasional wild horse that had decided to wander down there.

And be cautious.... because it is badland country that dirt is especially nasty when wet, there can be deeper snow drifts in winter, and if there is heavy snow melt-off or rains, the road can get pretty ugly with washouts and ruts - so double the caution about going when muddy or if there is weather!!

There is a small part of the Peaks that crosses the actual McCullough Peaks road, this road is a loop that you can find just about 5 or 10mins out of Cody, it is an incredibly beautiful drive to take - especially in Spring, but.... really only take this drive if you are wanting a little different vista for a bit.

The wild horses did used to wander up there years ago.... I remember seeing them once when we lived in Cody, but only once, and when I asked someone who has known the herd for years they said that the herd no longer travels up there, in large part because fencing and gate closures for cattle grazing has changed the horses historical migration habits.

I could write much more on the different ways to enter the Peaks, and the various 2-tracks that will take you to their water holes - for a fairly small HMA it is kinda big, and while I have traveled many of the roads - either intentionally or by accident, there are others still that I have not yet explored.

There are water-holes friends have taken me out to that I will only ever find again by accident, or if someone takes me out to that part of the Peaks again, it is easier than one would think to get turned around in this land!

But it is not my intention to write a book here, and because I know there are many other ways to learn about the Peaks (assuming you are not already so much more familiar with this HMA than me), I will leave the rest for you to explore on your own and discover the mysteries and adventures to be had in this land and with its wild horses.

Do not let anyone tell you (myself included) that you won't find horses here or there in the Peaks.... someone swore to me years ago that I would never see Peaks mustangs in a particular area of the HMA - I have photos to prove them wrong! Wild horses go where they want when they want.... you may find them in that place where I saw them only once!

Travel in the Peaks is really pretty easy, or at least easier than where I normally spend my wild horse time, some of it though really does require a rig with decent clearance, having a 4x4 is helpful on some of the more rutted trails, and very necessary if you find yourself suddenly in mud or snow!

Funny story, the Peaks was the very first wild horse territory that I found myself stuck and had to call for help to get out... it was weird as the snow was powder, it was not so deep that I was high-centered, and the friend who came and pulled me out agreed that I should not have needed help getting out!!

I have talked to others since then and have often heard the same thing, the Peaks with snow is tricky, and even though it looks okay they have found themselves also stuck when it should have been an easy drive - so be careful!

A good rule is that when in doubt get out and walk the road you are unsure of before driving it.... every skilled 4x4 peep does this, it is much easier to back out before getting stuck, or tearing something important off your rig!

Remember that often you can spot horses from the side of the Wild Horse / Greybull highway, on a lucky day you can just park your rig and walk up to the fence and enjoy their company, I have done that a few times!

And as mentioned before, you can often see horses around the Bridger Butte area (with binoculars) from the FOAL interpretive site, observing from a distance like that is not anyone's favorite way to see wild horses, but if you have limited time or a vehicle that is not dirt road friendly, it still allows you to see them!

And even from a distance, at least for me, it is a thrill to see a wild horse in wild country!

I have many amazing memories in the Peaks, both with friends and alone with these unique horses, it is incredibly stunning with tall grassy pastures, colorfully unique badland hills, and stunning distant mountain skylines... there really is no other place like McCullough Peaks.

There are also sad and angry memories here for me.... in the time I have gotten to know this HMA it was considered the land where helicopters did not chase wild horses into traps and that any removals done were few and far between and by bait trapping only, which is still not an easy thing to observe but not (usually) as brutal as a helicopter roundup.

But the bait trap removal of 2023/2024 was an especially contentious and fought over removal, it was unnecessary and with an aging population put this herd's viability and health at risk, I was there for more of it than I had planned because someone asked me to please speak as well as I could for the horses, and I did the best that I could in that moment.... in the end nothing anyone did was enough to stop what should have never been done to these wild mustangs.

It was not enough because those that have the fundraising, lawyers, and media presence chose not to take on a very winnable fight, a fight that me and others had down the work of obtaining necessary documentation to win that legal fight, and there is this piece of me that will never forget or forgive those that dismissed this as not important enough to spend money on lawyers and court.

They were wrong to not take this fight because not only did they fail the Peaks wild horses, they failed the future of other wild horses, everything in this long battle has a domino effect, and this particular domino has set a new precedent for required and previously completed actions of thorough documentation by BLM staff of range conditions in HMAs, and any future legal fights will now have an especially hard up-hill battle to push back this precedent.

I hope that when you visit this place you find nothing but magic and joy.... yes there has been sorrow here, yes there are mustangs taken that should not have been, and there continues to be those who wish them gone - but for today they are still wandering their wild hills through tall grasses with distant mountains filling their horizons.

Allow yourself to sit in the grass and breathe in the moments with them, allow yourself to live as they live - know that wild horses are aware of what is happening to all of their kind, they know of those that wish them gone from their wild places, and yet.... they find joy and live life to the fullest in the moments they are given, you also are allowed to feel joy in the moments you find yourself in their wild and majestic presence.

So off you go.... to find your adventure and experience the joy of the McCullough Peaks!