Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Maia seems to give an air of someone caught at the fridge at midnight. 🙂

Without all that snow piled so deep, it wouldn’t seem like she’s down in such a hidey hole, snatching vegetation her mates haven’t found yet!

The days are getting longer every day, but that ol’ winter sun still likes to stay fairly close to the horizon, where it casts long, long shadows at the end of the day.

Who knew we had an Arabian show horse in the wilds of Spring Creek Basin!?

Oh, it’s just (just!) Cassidy Rain, showing off her bold gorgeousity. 🙂

One of my snowshoes squeaked in the snow when I turned, and Cassidy Rain was off like a shot, tail flagged and head high.

Oh, isn’t she marvelous!

It’s no joke to say that the horses depend on – and even like – greasewood, even in its prickly winter phase. (Actually, it’s never not prickly, but in the warm months, at least it has a little succulent-type “bud” or “leaf” that makes it (maybe?) more palatable.)

Even winter snow ponies get itchy bellies now and then and need a handy greasewood on which to scratch! This was at least the second greasewood so abused by Seneca while I visited. Meanwhile, Killian thought they served better as forage than as a scratchy stick (he was eating the twigs). 🙂

The beauty is nearly blinding, eh?

This is what photographers call a “high key” image, where the whites are blown out and have no detail. Interestingly, that’s also what a foot of snow looks like under a cloudy sky when you’re snowshoeing through a meandering arroyo (because it’s “flat” and presumably easier to walk through): There is NO depth of field, and you really just hope there’s solid ground there under the snow at the same basic depth as the previous step because you’re too exhausted to do anything but fall if it’s not solid. (Ask me how I know.)

Pretty Spirit shines as bright as the snow. … Also, I asked her if the deep snow was harder for her to get around in than it was for her taller compadres, but she had no answer (and she kept up just fine).

While visiting with Hollywood’s band, exhausted by the snow and trying hard NOT to think about the return tramp to the road, I spotted a couple of other bands in the vicinity. In dry times, I wouldn’t have thought a thing about walking over to visit them, too, before heading back to the road. In dry times, the distances I hike might be daunting to someone who doesn’t regularly hike the distances I hike (!).

With a foot (?) of snow on the ground, lemme tell you: Half the distance seems to take three times as long to cover.

There was no way I was going visiting elsewhere that evening. 🙂

P.S. While walking a trail is noticeably easier than walking across sage- and shadscale- and greasewood-studded ground that often feels like shifting beach sand, retracing your snowshoe path isn’t much different than breaking trail – and I did both. It’s an effort. Of all things, it was my shoulders that hurt when I returned to the comforts of home, and I could barely lift a glass of tea. … But what a MARVELOUS hike through abundant snow with visions of full ponds and waving grass dancing in my head all the livelong way. 🙂

Almost no other color could glow with such warmth in a world so amazingly and blindingly white. And it is VERY white out here right now.

Even when we get snow, it so quickly melts that it’s rare to enjoy it for longer than a few hours after it falls. It was COLD yesterday morning (4 degrees Fahrenheit by my truck), and though we had periods of sunshine (first thing in the morning), clouds quickly obscured that glorious Colorado sky. That combination means that it’s still a very white world here in Disappointment Valley. 🙂 And the snow is deep – still.

The depth of the snow is obvious by that clinging to Hollywood’s knees and hocks. His face is wet to just below his cheeks from the foraging he’s doing in the snow to find the palatable bits of vegetation.

It’s RARE for us to have so much snow all at the same time. It’s COOL to have so much snow all at once.