Some Day We’ll Live Like Horses* 5.31.21
On Memorial Day, 2021, we started out with anticipation of seeing rare wildlife in a natural setting, and ended up stuck in our car on a snow-capped mountain.
We wanted to see some horses. The Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range is one of
only four areas in the lower 48 states that is maintained by the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) for the benefit of wild horses or burros. Comprising 38,000 acres in and around the Pryor
Mountains, it is home to about 120 mustangs as well as other wildlife. We looked at the BLM brochure that is
available online, and it seemed to give us all the information we needed. We were aware that a 4 WD, high-clearance, short
wheelbase vehicle is necessary for some of the roads. To quote the brochure: “Roads are difficult in all conditions and
nearly impassable during inclement weather.”
We were familiar with the rapid temperature and wind changes in the
mountains. We took extra clothes, food
and water, filled the tank before we left, and informed family back in Chicago
as well as the folks at the Grandview Campground in Hardin that we were setting
off into a remote area.
It takes quite some time to get to the Range. We arrived at mid-day. We did see a small building called the Pryor
Mountain Wild Mustang Center, and a BLM administration center, but perhaps due
to the holiday we did not see any activity at either facility. The map of the Range that was posted at the
entrance to the Range is the same as the one we found online. It is cryptic as BLM maps tend to be. We saw one road that circled the entire park,
with many twists and turns and a few points of interest. We determined we were on that road and went
forth.
Last year in Colorado we went on some unimproved roads. The experience caused a near-mutiny of the family members with us at the time. The terrain in Pryor Mountains is referred to as cold desert. It is mostly rocks, very short, twisty pines, sagebrush and rough vegetation. The roads were similar to, but even rougher than, those we drove in Colorado, with deep dips and high hills to climb, areas that seemed to be made up solely of rocks, and constant altitude changes, up and down and then up again. This was fun for about 20 minutes and then the shaking and bouncing got annoying. Our vehicle is a 4WD Toyota Sequoia, with a high clearance and a moderate wheelbase, but sometimes it seemed we were in a hole we would not be able to get out of. Sometimes the road dropped straight down under our feet and LCR had to get out to see where exactly it was going. Sometimes it seemed to go straight up. But we wanted to see wild horses and we assumed the road would straighten out eventually, for at least part of the way.
We were wrong. This
went on for about four hours, up and down, east and west, bone-jarring and
rivet-popping every inch of the way.
Moreover, driving like this was extremely slow. Even with a smaller, more agile vehicle
designed for such roads, it was always going to be time-consuming.
It is impossible for me to say how stressful this was for
the driver. He had to grip and wrench
the steering wheel, sometimes inching forward in tiny spurts, using the lower 4
gears to crawl over hills and tip down valleys.
He was exhausted but there was nothing for it but to keep going, because
to go back the way we had come would mean more hours of the same kind of thing.
At some point we realized we were climbing a mountain. True to the character of BLM maps, we had no
idea of which mountain or how high it was.
We saw a few isolated horses and photographed them from a distance.
Then we came to a very short, somewhat more level area with …
people, vehicles and horses! We were so
delighted to see other humans and hoped to get some information, so we
approached them, very carefully because they were very close to the
horses. They had cameras and sound
equipment and said they were a film crew working on a documentary called “American
Horses.” We asked them about the roads
out of the park, and they confirmed that we were at the top (northern) edge of
the park, and told us which upcoming fork to take to get down off the mountain
and out of the park. However, one woman
gave the opinion that it was at least 3 ½ hours of “more of the same,” i.e.,
similar terrain, before we would get to flat land, and sometime after that to
get to pavement. We hoped this was an
exaggeration. As we passed the crew, we
saw that they were camping, well-equipped with tents, food containers and
driving vehicles built on a similar truck platform to ours. This explained why they were not concerned
about the time – they were not leaving the mountain that night.
We did get to see the horses and they are magical. Unafraid of humans, they did not seem disturbed
by the film crew or our vehicle. They
are huge, too, bigger than the horses we had seen at farms all across
Montana. This was their land and they
were the shaggy, multicolored rulers.
Incredibly, we had cellphone service for a brief period
before we started down the mountain. We
called the fam in Chicago and let them know that we were ok and heading out,
and would let them know when we were back at the campground. We also called the campground and told them
the same. They replied that was good
news, but we were going to arrive home to a mess – a sharp-eyed camper at the
next site had seen water pouring out of our trailer. The water was turned off but there was concern
the trailer had been flooded.
It was already getting dark and cold on the snowy
mountaintop. As we started down, we
realized the woman from the film crew had not exaggerated, that this road was
just as bad as the one we had come up on, so many hours ago. We continued on with full headlights on. The new headlights (installed last year)
worked surprisingly well, and we kept going even though it was beginning to look
as though we would not make Hardin that evening. We kept revising our expectations – because of
the flooding, we would check into a motel in Hardin. Not so bad, given the flooded trailer
situation. Then later, we thought we
would get to flat land and check into a motel at the next town (Lovell, WY). I began to think even that would not happen,
as we continued to jolt along by inches, stopping occasionally as the dust
almost obscured the road with every gust of wind.
And then we lost the road.
We could not see anything ahead except more rocks and rough
vegetation, no clear tracks. This had
often been the case during the day so we got out and LCR examined before and
behind us with a flashlight. He could
not see anything resembling a track. It
was nearly dark. We decided to stop for
the night, since a wrong turn could send us off a cliff or off into uncharted
desert.
Though the temperature was in the 40s, we were not worried
as we had brought extra clothes. I changed
my sandals for walking shoes and warm socks, and put canvas pants under my
skirt, and LCR put on a warm sweatshirt.
His winter coat was handy in case we needed a blanket. We had plenty of food – sandwiches, tortilla
chips, dried fruit and fresh cherries – and water. We reclined the seats of the car after
backing it up to something closer to level ground. We left the car running for a while to make
sure it was good and warm. We sent off
texts informing the family what was happening, though I wasn’t sure they would
get through. Exhausted, LCR dropped off
to sleep. It was only about 10:30
p.m. Later, we awoke, ate a little more
and warmed up the car, then LCR went back to sleep.
I did not sleep much. I imagined all sorts of things – other vehicles coming along (hah!), wild animals, a windstorm. The wind was fierce and rocked the car constantly. In fact, when I had to leave the car to answer a call of nature, to get back in I had to grip both the car door and LCR’s hand quite hard to get the door closed because of the wind. Since I could not sleep, I sat and watched the lights in the sky. The stars were amazing because the area is so remote there is little light pollution, and I tracked one constellation across the sky throughout the night, though I don't know its name. I could see the lights of the nearest town below, enticingly close but impossible to reach until morning.
Dawn comes early in the mountains, and at around 5:30 I
thought maybe we could see the road, so I went outside. I discovered we had gone off the track a good
eighth of a mile back. We had stopped
just in time; the piece of ground where we were parked sloped down on solid
rock into a section of trackless desert, and we’d been headed at a considerable
angle away from the road. I informed
LCR of my findings and he elected to sleep some more. This time I did actually sleep for a while.
Finally, we thought it might be okay to start down. It took some doing to back out of the area
where we’d stopped. Then it was perhaps
an hour and a half of more rough road before we hit dirt, and another hour to
pavement. We were still pretty exhausted. We stopped for gas at Lovell and realized we
really needed a proper meal, so we used the gas station restroom to clean up a
bit and found the Brandin’ Iron, where we got eggs and potatoes and gradually
started to feel like human beings again.
Back in Hardin, we discovered a connection had broken in the
trailer under the sink, causing the flood.
The area rugs we use for carpeting got most of the water. Items we stored on the floor such as shoes
and electronics were somehow not damaged.
LCR fixed the connection in a very short time. It could have been so much worse, and I was
actually glad we did not have that to contend with in the middle of the night after
the grueling day on the road. The rugs
were washed and we ran the fan all day and by evening things were fine.
When we had rested (LCR slept off and on for most of
Tuesday), we realized we had not one photo of how crazy that road was. We had
before and after pictures, but during the drive, we were concentrating on
making it through, then making it home, then surviving. The only tangible memory we had was brown
dust coating everything we owned, every stitch of clothing, every seam in the
car upholstery. I can see why the Dust
Bowl drove people mad – and this was only one day of dust.
For some years, LCR has wondered about the capabilities of
the Sequoia, especially under off-road conditions. I believe we can definitively say we now know
just what this vehicle can do, and that we have little desire to test those
limits again any time soon.
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