11-17 August 2017

For those of you who follow us, you know our love for mountains and the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming is certainly one of our favorites.  When we say The Bighorn Mountains, we include the rivers, the wilderness, the canyons, the tributaries, the basins and all that it means to us.

On this trip, we spent seven nights and eight days exploring and observing the Bighorn. People have often asked us “what do you do all the time”? Well, our outdoor activities included hiking, fishing, photography,(on this trip) exploring on an ATV, and just absorbing. Of course these activities do not consume the entirety of our time. Time in and around the camper includes reading, playing cards, Meriam doing her handwork and me (with the able assistance of Meriam) spending time working on organizing & editing photographs and posting our blog entries. And, on the odd occasion, we head out to the local eateries where we enjoy learning about the history of the area from the locals.

For our “history lesson for this posting”, we decided you might want to hear about the Wild Mustangs of the Bighorn. So, we decided to visit the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range. This range is part of the 1,000,000+ acres of our “Bighorn” and it consists of over 36,000 acres. It was designated as the nation’s first public wild horse refuge in 1968. This refuge is particularly important in that all its Mustang horses are descendants of the original Spanish horses brought to America by the Conquistadores. These horses are strictly managed to maintain their blood lines.

As a side note, you might recall the origins of the horse began in America many thousands of years ago. From America, horses migrated to Asia and Europe, subsequently disappearing from this continent. The re-introduction of horses to America was perhaps one of the greatest contributions to our history.

As most of you know, we LOVE to “boondock”. In our national forests, this is called “dispersed camping” and as long as you are 1/2 mile off the main road it is entirely legal. This is our boondock site on the top of the Bighorns. We spent 6 nights here, and there was not a soul in sight all six nights!

Think Meriam is pleased?

Just one of the magnificent late evening sunsets.

On our last night on top of the Bighorn, I decided to take this panorama. While taking the six photographs required, Meriam quietly said “look in the middle of the field”. Seems a lone elk was standing watch for her group. While it is hard to see in the photograph (basically in the middle), I give you a closer view in the photograph below.

Here she is. She knows we are here, but does not feel threatened. Very slowly the rest of her group begins to arrive.

In all, we counted 9 elk in the final group. As many of you probably know, elk are very elusive. Being able to see the herd close up was very special to us.

This and the following photograph were taken at the summit of the Bighorn. Note the rain storm approaching on the left. You can also see the valley in the far distance.

On our first trip to the Bighorn several years ago, the slopes in the near distance were all covered with snow.

On one of our outings, Meriam and I decided to be “wild and crazy…or perhaps just crazier”! We rented an ATV and spent 4 hours driving through some of the roughest country we have ever traveled. Such fun! This map depicts the trails on which ATVs in this area are allowed. Wyoming maintains strict control of where ATVs can travel. This helps preserve its wonderful wilderness while still allowing an interesting sport.

Fun, fun, fun!

While this looks “tame”, it was very steep. Unfortunately we do not have a photograph of some of the more difficult parts (it was all I could do to keep the ATV under control while Meriam was just hanging on)!

As we forded a small creek, we came upon this big fellow.

Little did we know he had company (note the female moose on the left and the deer on the right).

Think I’m having fun?

Tough, narrow trails…

…and magnificent views!

As we began our trek down from the mountain, we encountered the view of the valley below. In a distance of 40 miles we descended from 10,000 feet to the town of Lovell at 3800 feet — one of the steepest descents we have traveled.

We heard about Devil’s Canyon just outside of Lovell, WY so we decided to take a look.

Another view. To give this a perspective, note the boat in the water in the left hand side, center.

An added benefit at Devil’s canyon was the viewing of big horn sheep. Here is a mother and her lamb. The “strange” patch on her rump is the last vestige of her winter wool shedding.

We saw two mothers and two lambs. Unfortunately the big rams with their curved horns have not yet come down from the high mountains.

However, this and the following photograph makes up for no ram. How many times does one get to view two bighorn sheep lambs “nozzle” each other?

However, the highlight of this day was a sighting of a herd of wild Mustang horses. The stallion of this group is named Hitchcock. The third horse from the left is only one of only four foals born to entire herd of 160 wild Mustangs in this preserve. When talking with the director of the Wild Horse Information Center, we were told each of the 160 horses has a name. New foals are give a name soon after birth.