Jaci Dawn

I have been mulling over how to write a blog post about the wild horses of Nevada. I want to bring attention to what is considered by some to be illegal round-ups of the mustangs off of Federal land (specifically Bureau of Land Management land) within the State of Nevada. But I don’t want to jump into something that I am not fully informed on and go off half-cocked.

The issue is complicated. My thirty years of marriage to a man with a wildlife management degree (almost) under his belt helps me see some of the “other” side to the arguments. When I met Don, I was an anti-hunting radical. Our first date (walking his trap lines in two feet of snow out of Sumpter, Oregon) changed much of my thinking (it was also incredibly cool that we got up close and personal with a herd of elk as they walked through a barbed wire fence. Elk think nothing of fences).

I understand complicated eco-systems, the delicate balance of different species in one area (especially when those species compete for the same food sources and vie for the same limited water supply), and the need for a balanced approach to “multiple-use” Federal lands. There are days when I spout vile rhetoric at the US Forest Service because of their tendency to manage forests solely for the logging industry and the screaming eastern liberals who want more and more of our National Forest land cut off from the public in order to “preserve” it. Those spouts are generally when I come upon a road I have always used to find out the Forest Service has “decommissioned” it because there’s no more logging in the area. Nevermind the camping, hiking, hunting and fishing: there’s no money in those uses.

But I digress.

How to write about wild horse round-ups when I am not there to observe and substantiate the “facts”?

I decided to add a few links at the end of my blog and let the reader decide. My story is just going to be about how wild horses helped me grieve. And, oddly enough, my mother didn’t even like horses. She never understood my fascination with them but she never tried to impose her personal feelings on the subject.

We moved to Ely, Nevada in 1970 when I was entering high school. I was involved with the movement to save the wild horses. I sent in ten dollars, got some sort of certificate, and helped write letters to our Congress to pass the Wild Horse Preservation Act of 1971. I’m sure I sent more than just the $10, but my memory is foggy and that photo album is buried in a box. And it really isn’t relevant to my story: I am just setting the foundation.

Years passed, I moved away, got married, had children and ended up living in the Portland metropolitan area of the northern Willamette Valley. A long way from “home” and my beloved alkali Great Basin roots.

In 1996, my mother passed away. We set her memorial service for the first week in August and I returned home to make my plans.

We took a two week vacation to make the trip down, planning (as always) to do a lot of back-country camping.

Our first stop in Nevada was up in the Santa Rosa Mountains. A lot of memories are packed into the Santa Rosas: childhood camping trips, petroglyphs my dad took us to see, living in Paradise Valley, the wonderful rock formations of Hinckey Summit, and snow drifts in the summer.

The view from the summit south toward Paradise Valley.

It was the end of July, going into the first week of August and the thermometer dropped to 25 degrees (F). We had a light snow on our tent that first morning.

From there, we headed to Winnemucca. We turned east on I-80 as far as Elko where we turned south and drove down to Jiggs. We followed a dirt road over Harrison Pass looking for a good spot to pull over and camp. the best spot we found was covered with fresh cow poop (love open range!) and – worse – human garbage, including disposable diapers. We could have lived with the cows but having to clean up disposable diapers did us in. We kept driving. Don’t even ask me about the soap box topic of human filth leaving behind their trash.

We turned south along the Ruby Marshes. We came to a crossroad where the old Pony Express trail runs east-west across the desert. A wide gravel road followed the trail and, on a whim, Don took it.

That was when we saw our first pile of horse shit.

It was, literally, two feet high. There were more, sometimes three feet high. Horses are “bathroom” animals and will go out of their way to poop in the same spot rather than pollute their own pasture. You don’t see it as much in domesticated horses as in the wild. I wish I had taken photographs but Don was tired and cranky, the sun was low and we really needed a place to camp.

We had a good Nevada Atlas and a good map of Federal lands in Nevada. A few miles east of Johnson Cabin, we turned north along a jeep track and four-wheeled out into some deep sagebrush along a dry wash, looking for a good place to set up a tent on National Forest land.

We found a great spot among the dried out skunk cabbage, on a little rise above what was probably a mini-marsh in the early springtime. The grass was deep, the sagebrush was tall (a good sign of deep water), and the junipers were twisted and ancient. And the dust in the wash was full of horse tracks. We’d seen one herd on our way in and assumed that herd used the wash as a trail of sorts.

We were so wrong. There were so many more horses. The horses knew we were there. We could hear them. That evening, we heard at least one small band go by. I hiked out with my camera and snapped photos. They preferred the ridges where they could see danger approaching.

I was shooting an old Kodak 35mm SLR with ASA 400 film using a 75-200mm zoom. It just wasn’t long enough.

The grief in my heart over losing my best friend was temporarily suspended as we counted the different herds that passed by.

That night, coyotes moved in and surrounded us, serenading wildly. Sadie, our English Pointer, snuggled closer to her human pack and shivered. She was a stupid dog, but never stupid enough to wander out into coyote territory.

The next morning, Don got up and hiked up the draw. I let the kids sleep in while I sat on a chair and caught up on my journal and plotted how I might sneak up on some wild horses. A slight sound startled me and I looked up: a mule deer buck stood a few feet from me, upwind, curious.

“Hello,” I said. He just stared. Then sight recognition kicked in and he realized I was a human being and he stepped back into the sagebrush, melting away in the way of the mule deer.

We broke camp and headed out.

There’s a part of every little girl that falls for a Palomino stallion. There he was on the skyline, pushing his little band of six or seven down the ridge.

Don turned off the engine and I slipped out of the cab, sneaking up into the juniper and pinion, hoping to get close enough for my little lens to capture the wild west. My intrepid little family followed suit, leaving only the dog in the cab. The dog was wise enough not to bark.

He charged us. Threw up his head and whinnied, and raced at us, flaxen mane and tail flowing out behind him. The lead mare, a gimpy bay horse, rounded up the rest of the band and started them on their way away from us.

He stopped about 300 yards out. I so wished I had a better lens. I could see him clearly but the camera couldn’t: his nostrils flared, his head was high: he was trying for scent. I prayed the wind would hold. But he was too wise and whirled, chasing his little band away.

In all, we saw seven bands of wild horses, none over eight horses, all in that one little section of horse-poop heaven. One band of three “bachelors”. And not one unhealthy horse, except the gimpy mare and she moved quite well on three legs. The grass was deep, the sagebrush tall, and the water hole pocked with horse tracks.

My heart, so heavy over the loss of my mother, soared.

We related the tale in Ely. My dad, that long-time Forest Ranger and horse hater (or so I thought) then related to me some tales of his own about some of the beautiful wild horses he had seen on the range during his years as a Ranger. Turns out, he had a soft spot for horses that he never wanted me to see. He even deeded me his old tack, the bridle he used on his favorite half-broke Forest Service outlaw, a blue roan known as “Smokey”.

Our return trip to the Willamette valley was not as eventful. We took Highway 93 north until the Secret Pass cut-off. I talked Don into going over Secret Pass.

There was a range fire down by Ruby Lake.

We crossed over the mountains and headed back to Oregon via Mountain City and Bruneau Sand Dunes in Idaho.

My heart was still sad about the loss of my mom, but it was so much lighter. I knew it had to do with the mustangs. There’s something about wild horses, something about the freedom of the range and mule deer that come down into camp to say “good-morning”.

My mother’s ashes rest over the Santa Rosa Mountains far from the wild horses. I’m sure she’s happy there. <wink>

Some links you can go to if you are curious about wild horses in Nevada:

Editorial

PhotoRover (my high school friend, Arla, with a Nevada perspective)

Controversy

Please note: my photos were taken in 1996 which was apparently a good water year. The vegetation is thick and green, spring was very late (remember it froze in the Santa Rosa Mtns in late July), graze and water were good.

I have been among wild horses in Oregon since that trip to Nevada. Still not up-close-and-personal like my friend, Arla. I’m still dreaming of a trip into Kiger Gorge to see the Kiger Mustangs which date back to the original Arabians.

I cannot comment personally on the video-tapes or editorial of BLM cruelty during round up because I was not there. But I am certain there is a bit of truth to the sensationalism and that bit of truth makes me sad. The wild horse is not just an icon: it is a native animal. It belongs on the open range with the white-faced cattle and the curious mule deer. (I love cattle on the open range!)