Today we are going to explore the largest HMA of the North Lander Complex:

Muskrat Basin!

This HMA is my favorite of the complex, it is where I have spent considerable time exploring and yet feel there is so much still unknown!

And I love the challenge of the unknown....

I included the above complex BLM information page here, but as discussed in my previous blog on Conant Creek, this info page is sadly lacking in detailed information and should not be used as more than a quick reference page of the overall complex.

Below is the Muskrat Basin HMA detailed information found within the BLM map for their Herd Management Area, it has only the basic details but at least tells us the low AML is 160 and high AML is 250 wild horses for Muskrat Basin.

You can also see the total acreage of the HMA.

Muskrat Basin is an amazing land.... I have been traveling it for 14+ years now and there is so much to experience here!!

The horses.... mostly you will meet handsome bays and pretty sorrels that are as wild as the winds that dance through their manes, and then there are the paints..... the pintos in this land are one of a kind spectacularly striking!

There are the 'regular' pintos of course, the kind we see in almost every HMA, but there are other pintos here that are unlike any I have seen anywhere else, and they are not easy to capture on camera, often a little bit stand-offish or just so wild all you can do is watch them gallop away through your binoculars!

The terrain of Muskrat Basin is.... everything!

There are long ridges of grass, sage, and wild flowers, low valleys and washes where snows drift deep and melt slow, sudden deep rocky draws with hidden springs, creeks that run through the hills where mustangs gather, and the scenic drive along Cedar Rim with a never-ending stunningly gorgeous vista for miles.

There are old homestead sites to visit, hidden places to sit with the wild horses, endlessly amazing rocks to collect - there is not one thing about this land that is boring!

As you can see by studying the above map, Muskrat Basin literally makes up one half of the North Lander Complex - it is no exaggeration to say it is massive in size!

I have had the wonderful experience of exploring miles across this land, and have been so terribly lost at times that it took me hours to find my way back to the main roads - in those lost hours I crossed some very extra country 2-tracks and completely lost all sense of direction, and although there is some really cool country that I would love to re-visit, I never want to travel those particular 2-track trails again - at least not in a regular rig! Maybe someday in an ATV to take in the more rugged terrain.

So... lets get started on how you can find your own adventure in this sacred land!

If you are beginning your adventure in this HMA after exploring Conant Creek HMA it will be easiest to start from the northern border of Muskrat Basin, which is easily found along the Gas Hills Rd / Hwy 136 coming from Riverton - make sure to fill your rig up and have extra snacks and plenty of water for this adventure!!

The northwestern border of Muskrat Basin HMA is found where the very tiny creek called Conant Creek (not to be confused with the HMA) crosses under the highway, about 22 miles from where you turned onto the Gas Hills Rd when leaving town... Muskrat Basin HMA stretches for just about 12 miles of driving east along the highway - remember wild horses are on the south side of the highway only!!!

There are 2-tracks and a couple of fairly decent roads to take in to explore this part of Muskrat Basin, I have had a lot of fun on the roads out here, have met some truly stunning and wild horses, and been terribly lost.... in this part of the HMA it is really important to know that it is SO MUCH BIGGER than it appears - I have made the mistake more than once believing I could easily travel across these lower hills and to the rim in the distance.... and I still believe that to be true - but not in a regular rig, not from this part of the HMA, let my experience be your warning!

You will know you have reached the end of wild horse lands along the highway when you spy the ranch in the above map.... it is just off the highway and from here eastward is non-HMA.

I have occasionally seen wild horses near the ranch and they do not seem bothered by all the goings on of a working cattle ranch. I have also been out there when the ranchers are moving their cows and they have always been polite to me.

Even though you are leaving wild horse territory when you pass the ranch this is only temporary and if you keep travelling along the highway it is going to take you out to the dirt road that goes back into Muskrat Basin!

With the intent of exploring more of Muskrat Basin you are going to follow the highway out until it dead ends at a dirt road and you must choose left or right.... because you came here for wild horses you are going to hang a right (south) and drive along the well maintained dirt road called Ore Rd.

You are going to travel for a few miles past several old Uranium mines that are either currently in the reclamation process, or have had the process completed, but you may still easily recognize the parts that have been mined and where the earth is ever so slowly healing itself from the scars left by man.

There are often Pronghorn here and if you are traveling in early summer there are little wee babies so slow down and watch for them.... my hubby was driving us one day and one was laying smack in the middle of the road, looked all the world like a rock, thankfully he recognized it as something different and did not hit the little one - they are taught by their mothers to freeze in place as the best way to stay safe from predators, so always be aware that the little brown lump may be a baby!

After you have driven about 7 or 8 miles down Ore Rd you will cross a cattleguard and be back in the wild horse territory of Muskrat Basin!

I like to stop at the cattleguard and study the hills for horses, it is a perfectly elevated little hill that allows for one to look around for miles, including under the distant rim, where horses can often be seen through out the year.

It is a weird thing that while it seems logical to get to the highest point to look for horses, in this particular land that often allows the horses to do their best hiding from human eyes, I found by trial and error that being on the highest ridges I am unable to see into the draws and washes favored by the mustangs.

So while this spot is not the highest ridge or hill, stopping here has often given me some idea of where I need to go to visit with the wild horses....

On the west side of Ore Rd you will see several 2-tracks as you travel towards the rim, few of them go far, there is a draw with a creek running through it, and spring snow melting or summer thunderstorms have resulted in many of the 2-tracks becoming impassible except by foot.

I have found a couple that with some grit and careful 4x4 work have made it through..... it has been trial and error to find the right way across, and I don't take them unless I know I want to spend an entire day working my way across the 4x4 trails.

Are there mustangs that make this trek worth the time?

Before the 2024 roundup and removal there were several dozen wild horses wandering about here, they were pretty dang wild and made me work real hard to photograph them, but the terrain here makes for some truly amazing backdrops to these wild ones.

At the time of this writing it is probably pretty hard to find many wild horses, and my bet is they are are even more averse to human presence after the disturbance of that removal, but if you have the time, the 4x4 rig, the patience, and enjoy a challenging adventure then I recommend exploring those 2-track trails!

To the east side of Ore Rd are a few more 2-tracks to travel, the HMA border is only a mile or two from the main dirt road to the east, but there are a few hidden little spots where you may find a band of wild horses..... one of my very favorite mares used to hide often in these hills, she was as wild as she could be, many mistook her for a stallion but she let me close enough one day to know she was indeed a lady!!

After traveling along a few miles south on Ore Rd you will begin climbing to the top of Cedar Rim, once you have reached the rim you will have traversed a bit more than half of the HMA - which is misleading because up on the rim is an entire world of places to explore that will take you more days than you have to find all the hidden secrets of this wild land and her wild horses!

Once you have climbed up the hill and are at the edge of the rim you will have three options.... continuing south on Ore Rd takes you through a few more miles of Muskrat Basin, then past a couple of ranches and across the Sweetwater River, and finally you will arrive at the tiny little town of Jeffrey City on Highway 287 - and from there you can go in which ever direction takes you to your next adventure!

But..... if you look to the east side of Ore Rd you will see a well-used 2-track and a water tank - if you look closely on hot summer days you just may see a wild horse or two mixing with the cows that are often found hanging out at this watering spot.

Be aware that if there are horses you will need to approach cautiously... the 2-track has a lot of ruts and chuckholes that are an unpleasant experience if you drive too fast, and the horses are often just shy enough to start wandering away if they perceive you as being way too focused on them.

There are a few other 2-tracks you can travel along to explore on the east side of the main dirt road, they do tend to wash out in the draws and deep washes a mile or so in, and you may think that because it seems flat if you do not see horses it is a waste of time to travel those 2-tracks... that would be a mistake - this is hilly country and I have often found that what appeared to be a horseless land to have several mustang bands tucked into draws and dips between the hills.

And while the 2-tracks do often wash out you can often drive up to a reasonable distance and then hike a little bit to visit with the wild horses under the sun.

Or.... the 3rd option is to turn onto the 2-track going west along the rim!

If you have time (a half-day at minimum), a sense of adventure, and a good 4x4 rig you can take this 2-track along the rim through Muskrat Basin, Rock Creek Mountain, and into Dishpan Butte and then finally out to the Sweetwater cutoff highway - I try to do drive this at least once a year.... be aware though, this goes into some very remote country - if you get into trouble here it will be very costly to get help, the road is not to be taken anything but serious as it is very rocky in some stretches and has at least one badly rutted and washed out spot that has caused my hubby (who usually accuses me of being too cautious) to pause and question the safety of passing through!

But the views.... oh my!!! Wild horse territory for miles as you can see into Muskrat Basin, Conant Creek, Rock Creek Mountain, and even Dishpan Butte.... incredible beauty surrounds you and is made even more amazing by the always stunning WindRiver Mountains filling your distant horizon!

But remember.... today you are here to visit with the wild horses of Muskrat Basin, so don't follow that trail all the way out quite yet, because this stretch of Muskrat Basin is where you may find many of the Muskrat Basin mustangs - and it is incredibly deceptive just how easily the horses can hide from you!!

I made the mistake for years of traveling along the highest ridges looking for horses and believing this area to be pretty dang empty of wild horses.....

As tempting as the high ridge vistas are, in this place for the best chance to find the horses, we have to find the sweet spot along a ridgeline that can see for miles but is also not the highest ridge, because when too high we lose sight of the undulating valleys through out this land, and it is there that the horses are most often found....

There is not really a magic 2-track that brings you to exactly the right spot to spy them... of course I have my favorite ways to go, but that does not always mean the horses will be cooperative about being found, and I have had to change my direction and plan a couple of times to figure out where they are for that day.

There are creeks and natural springs scattered around, the horses have their favorite watering holes, but those can and will change dependent on which watering hole actually has water at the moment.... Wyoming is ever only one season away from drought, and water holes will fill up or dry up dependent on snow accumulation or rain fall - and it can change even in mid summer, so where the horses were two weeks ago does not mean you will find them there now.

If it is a very dry summer you will have the most luck spying them at the rancher maintained water holes, which is pretty easy to find as you will see cows gathered about the water tanks that are typically closer to the main dirt road.

Love them or not, the fact is that cattle on the range in most HMAs means there are maintained water sources during grazing season, and in drought years that allows wild horses to expend less energy searching for natural water sources - in drought years searching for water can and will substantially change a herds habits and location.

Please know that in Muskrat Basin the mustangs are not super keen on humans being nearby when they are getting their water.... on occasion they allow it, if done incredibly slowly and patiently, but even then not usually close enough if you are hoping for spectacular images or videos.

Okay, a second way in to explore Muskrat Basin: if you are not already in Riverton and do not need to go to Riverton for any reason, you can also access this HMA from along Hwy 287 from the small uranium mining and rancher town of Jeffrey City.

Be mindful that fueling up at this point is a good idea but requires some planning - Jeffrey City is a one-horse kind of town... they literally have one bar that also serves as their restaurant and as the gas station!

You really need to know that the gas pumps serve ONLY diesel and the VERY cheapest of unleaded gas - that is it!! Also the gas is not actually cheap.... and the pumps often do not work with a card swipe, meaning if the bar is not open to start the pump for you then you will not be able to get fuel here.

So plan ahead and fuel up before you leave whatever is the nearest town whether it be Rawlins, Muddy Gap, or Lander.

Once you are in Jeffrey City you will be turning north onto the dirt Ore Rd to head into Muskrat Basin HMA..... you will travel close to six miles before entering the HMA, you drive past a few ranches and cross the Sweetwater River (which is going to look a lot more like a creek than a river to you), and once you no longer see the ranches and cross one more cattleguard you are now in the wild horse territory of Muskrat Basin!

From here you can play on 2-tracks and explore while looking for wild horses using the information in the above paragraphs.

There is one more entrance that is only a very small corner of the HMA but maybe someone will want to take the chance and explore here....

When traveling between Muddy Gap and Jeffrey City you will see a sign for Agate Flats, if you turn and travel about 10 miles north on this road, you will enter into a very small wester edge of Muskrat Basin HMA.

Agate Flats road travels only a little more than a mile through the HMA, with the eastern border of the HMA being less than a half mile from the road, of course if you grab a 2-track heading west you will have miles of HMA to explore - be aware though that you have to stay true west for at least three miles before going south or north, otherwise you will be outside of the HMA lines.

I do not know this area well, and the information about horses being here is conflicting, the BLM specialist told me that rarely are there horses over here, but I have had local ranchers tell me that there are horses wandering around here.

My guess is that both are correct, I doubt most of the Muskrat Basin horses find themselves over this way, but there are always a few loners and rogues that find themselves in a place where there are not many other mustangs.

It is out of the way enough for me that I just don't go this way, and the few times I tried it was winter and the road was just a bit too challenging for this girl - I go a lot of places other people do not, but winter is when I practice the most caution as I try not to get into so much trouble someone has to rescue me.

My experiences in this HMA has been varied with days of seeing no wild horses and also some of the most memorable once in a lifetime experiences... when I first began visiting here it was just a few months after I began visiting the Red Desert in 2011, and I rarely saw wild horses.

Of course all I had then was a Ford Taurus, and passenger cars will not survive off the main road in this HMA! And as I fell more deeply in love with the desert horses my time was spent more with them, and often this area is snowy enough to make travel impossible 4-6 months of the year, so my visits to Muskrat were sporadic for some time.

When we moved to the Bighorn Basin from Laramie traveling through this area became easier, and as the years went by wild horses would occasionally show themselves near the main dirt road, with one particularly beautiful band being unusually (for this area) accepting of human presence, with other travelers often stopping to observe and photograph them along the dirt road running through their wild land.

I think of that mustang family often, they offered freely to humans a glimpse into their wild life, even to those who advocate in favor of removal and defend helicopter roundups as necessary and humane.

I think of how that family band offered those people the chance to truly see them, learn from them, and understand them - how that wild mustang family is no longer wild or free, and how those same people still fail to see them for the sentient beings that they are and the permanent and irreversible damage done by their removal from this land.

The summer before the helicopter roundup began in 2024 I wandered the hills of Muskrat Basin more than anywhere else, it was where over 2000 wild horses ran with the wild winds across the hills.

I took anyone that would let me out to visit and experience... under summer sun and thundering stormy skies was an experience that I have never had anywhere else, it was a once in a lifetime moment that I felt everyone should have a chance at.

Before the land was claimed by dominating humans and scarred with highways and fence-lines there was a land untouched, unscarred, and uncontrolled.

And on that land in that time the thundering of thousands of wild horses were the perfect drum beat to the singing of the wild winds - and for a very brief moment I was allowed to feel what that looked and felt like, so long ago it has been forgotten by us - but I promise the land and the horses still remember it.

On a hot summer afternoon as band after family band of wild horses thundered past me, circling back to see what I was before going to water, and then repeating the scene of examining me before they galloped away into their secret valleys and high ridges, I walked along the dusty trails, gathering rocks that called to me.

Today one of those rocks sits on my desk as I write this and when I reach over and touch it I am brought back to those thundering hooves of a thousand wild mustangs, wind whispering across their backs and through my hair under the hot sun, as for just a moment I shared space with them in their incredible sacred wild land.

This land of Muskrat Basin has had an extraordinary and lasting effect on me, it is not something easily explained in words and really I can claim only to know a very little of them and their land, because there is a secrecy to its sacredness, an ancientness that is older than what I have known in the places I haunt most, and perhaps it is not meant to be understood by most us that are not of the wild places - perhaps we are meant only to defend it.

And now you know much of what I have found over the years of trekking 2-tracks and walking trails across this land.

Today there are only a few hundred wild horses thundering across the high ridges and down into the low valleys, it will not be easy for you to find them, but I hope that you still try, because it has been my experience that if you venture out into the wild places with a heart seeking adventure and honoring the things that you see, wild things and wild horses will join you along the way.

So go, find your own adventure in this crazy beautiful wild sacred land and its wildly stunning and sacred mustangs!