The morning was a drive to the top of the Pryor Mountains, in search of the wild horses. We used the Crooked Creek Road. While the road only is about 12 miles, it took almost three hours, and were very glad we had the Jeep Liberty. Most of this road was very rocky with trees growing in it, and deep ruts, making strong sidewalls a must. This road would certainly NOT be possible in a sedan. And this was the 'best' of the roads from Lovell: We couldn't imagine the worst one! We found an alternate way back, through Montana, which was a bit further, but took only about 1 1/2 hours. One of the many beautiful views on the horse range....
One of the views from the scary drive up "Crooked Creek" Road! (Melissa's photo)
On top we saw 155 horses .. which is a majority of the herd of about 200! Some approaches were very close! Most were in the Penn's Cabin area, which one can rent. We also spotted Cloud & Raven, who were featured on the Nature special 'Cloud: Wild Stallion of the Rockies" on PBS about these horses. Cloud was defending his mares from Plentycoup, a rival mustang! The views from the top of the ridge were spectacular, and it was cool to see all the horses. Bring bug spray though, the flies were awful. 
Our shadows against the tundra on Pryor Mountain.
One of the Pryor Horses, with the beautiful Big Horn Canyon in the background. (Melissa's photo)
A closeup view of one of the horses. (Melissa's photo)
The famous horse "Cloud", leading one of his children, and one of his mares away from ...
... Plentycoup, another stallion who was chasing them!
Raven is another horse from the TV special (He's Cloud's father) (Melissa's photo)
The afternoon was spent driving to Cody. Had a great BBQ meal in this town at Bubba's BBQ. Spent the night at the Green Gables Inn, west of Town, which was a nice small, inexpensive hotel located in a scenic area.
BIRDING: RED-NECKED PHEASANT seen on the drive up. In a burned area on Crooked Creek Road, a nice flyby of a LEWIS'S WOODPECKER, also STELLAR JAYS were common there, and a few WESTERN TANAGERS, and Empidonax Flycatchers.
Ring-Necked Pheasant spotted near Lovell, Wyoming. (Melissa's photo)
2 comments:
Sounds like an interesting trip!
Thanks! Yeah it was great, so much to see! It was very hard to come back, but doing the blog has been a great way to remember... Thanks for visiting the blog!
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