Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Shane surveys her wild home.

Happy Independence Day!

We found Tenaz grazing by himself, and when we topped a low ridge and he spotted us, he came trotting over to greet us. For a visitor making her first trip this year to see the mustangs, it was a nice “welcome back.” 🙂

The clouds were promising, but as it turned out, they were only photogenically appealing and didn’t drop a spit of rain. Spirit is pretty photogenic, too – pretty pinto girl against a purple sky.

Houdini, Alegre and Maia on an evening stroll in Spring Creek Basin. Don’t you love those gorgeous mustang girl faces?

Shiny boy Maiku couldn’t be bothered to give me any notice at all during an evening visit. The grass was more enticing, and the bugs were more, well, buggy.

Growing up handsome.

All the little “bokeh spots” are the infamous gnats. Yes, they’re out. Yes, they’re bad.

It’s not only the stallions that have moves. Piedra plays hard to get with Hollywood.

Do you see them? Copper is easier to see. Gray Seven, not as easy to see, though he’s right behind Copper. The band is out of sight.

Big country, and the mustangs are – to me and to all of you, I think – a big part of this little corner of it. To see them for even moments is to experience all the magic of the still-wild country we’re privileged to know in this particular country. Here, bears wander and mountains lions prowl, bobcats and coyotes blend with the tawny earth, and elk and deer and pronghorn drift, following what they all follow: water and forage. The mustangs are more easily seen in this circle of wild life, and they bring magic to the land as surely as the slanting sunlight sets fire to grasses full of seed.

I’ve had a couple of wondrous days with the horses – hiking, sitting, drifting, napping, watching – and in the magic – and mundane – I feel such beauty, it’s enough to break and mend and break and mend – and lift – your heart a million times over. In all my travels, I haven’t found this – the *this* that keeps me returning to hike and sit and drift and nap and watch.

The horses – wild and gentle and brave and strong and curious and forgiving – make this land immense, and intimate, and incomprehensibly beautiful.

Can’t go wrong with a handsome mustang and a background of mountains (however hazy). Grey/Traveler is following the grass and water across his wild home.

Pretty mustang girls Maia, Alegre and Houdini against the setting sun.

Skywalker and Apollo graze together on the evening of the longest day of the year.

We had a glorious hour or so of luscious light toward the end of the day, before the sun sank into clouds above the horizon, and we watched several bands too far away for anything but enjoyment. But what better way to spend the first evening of summer? None better than enjoying the beauty of the basin and the magic of all the wild things that dwell within.