YELLOWSTONE'S WILD WORLD

After a long and grueling drive, 2 hours and 12 miles, to the top of Pryor Mountain I realized a major dream – to see the Pryor Mountain wild horses, which are believed to be descendants of Spanish horses, knowns as the Colonial Spanish Horse or the Spanish Mustang, which is considered a rare and endangered breed.  http://www.pryormustangs.org    

I had heard stories about the road to the wild horses on Pryor Mountain, and how awful it was, but never could I have imagined just how hard the drive was.  Signs said to have a 4 wheel drive with high clearance and a short wheel base.  One employee told me that I could take the road if feeling adventurous.  At the center they said that my rig had plenty of clearance but they weren’t sure if the road was dried out after a couple days of rain.

About 1/4 of the way up the road I was thinking just how crazy a girl’s love can be for a horse.  Horses were my first love and that kind of love never dies.

The road was covered with rocks, big rocks, small rocks, ruts, wet clay, mud, gravel – it was one inch at a time.  More than once I stopped and declared that I could go no further.  But, after walking the bad section and figuring out a plan, I continued on, all the while thinking about how I would never make it back down that mountain.  One hill looked to be the end of the road for me.  I walked to the top and a little beyond and there they were – wild horses.  There had to be a way to climb the hill and so I studied the ruts, removed some large loose rocks and slowly climbed to the top once again, with 4 tires beneath me.

I was there, looking at a band of bachelor stallions with one very young pale palomino, sort of white, filly.  The filly has the whitest eye lashes I have ever seen!  She was odd, sweet, sort of ugly and ultimately gorgeous and my heart went out to her, especially when she decided to walk over to me when one of the guys began harassing her.  After backing up and backing up, I finally just stood still and they all took turns walking up for a closer look.  We never touched, just looked.  And when they were satisfied, they went on.

That was when a couple of stallions decided to duke it out.  Instead of a pissing contest, the stallions have shitting contests.  They shit, sniff, sniff each others, squeal, paw and attack.  Often I find large piles of horse dung, where it is obvious that several stallions added to each pile.  I am not sure exactly what it means – if the guy who gets the top of the pile wins or what, but imagine it is much like marking their territory or staking their claims.

I grew up with horses but did not know of these struggles amongst the stallions and how possessive they are of their gals – and chauvinistic as everyone goes where ever he wants to go, when he wants to go.  Some times the stallion just looks as though he is bored and so needs to tell one of the gals to move.  The other thing that I find totally and completely fascinating is the stallion’s participation in the socialization of the foals.  And, they way they watch over their youngsters and keep them out of danger.  But, mostly their affection.  I got to watch Cloud today with his young colt and it was quite touching.

So, the guys went at it, rearing, posturing, pawing, snorting and kicking.  They did the perfect rearing action but the camera would not take the shot!  Get some miss some.

When I watch and photograph the wild horses, it is the action that I wish to capture.  I know the signs now, the fights always begin with the shitting contest.  Most often the fighting is over in seconds and everyone carries on as if words were never said.

I watched a couple of other stallions come close to the fight and the shot would have been perfect with the Big Horn Canyon behind and lit by the late afternoon light, but they walked away.  Darn!

As I made my way back down, from the very top of Pryor Mountain where Pen’s Cabin sits, along with many more wild horses, I had hoped to have more time with these bachelor guys and maybe Cloud but they had disappeared.

The trip down the mountain was hairy but much easier than the trip up.  I so want to go back to those horses but I made a deal to go home and get my work done if I survived the journey.  I plan to keep my deal because that was one hairy ride to realize my dream to be with the horses.

Next trip to Pryor Mountain I will plan to camp on the mountain, instead of trying to stay late for the good light and then driving down in the dark – which I did not do!  I left early and made it down with a few minutes of daylight to spare.