CO: Wild Horses, 12-13MAY07

[devinsixtyseven]

We're planning on heading toward Cameo on Saturday morning, assuming the truck is back in one piece in time.

From various CO parks & BLM websites:

"Colorado River State Park Island Acres: During the 1900s a town named Cameo, not far from Grand Junction, flourished near the present day Island Acres section of Colorado River State Park. The town was named after several rock formations visible from Interstate 70 that resembled a face with an eyebrow, a nose, a mouth and a chin. Island Acres offers a perfect location to view this unique rock formation, along with roaming wild horses and abundant valleys filled with vineyards."

"The 1971 Wild and Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act provides for the management, protection and control of all unbranded and unclaimed horses and burros on public lands administered by the BLM. Though wild horse herds live in many parts of the western United States, the Little Book Cliffs Wild Horse Area is one of only three areas in the United States set aside specifically for them. Just 8 miles northeast of Grand Junction, the Wild Horse Area encompasses rugged canyons and plateaus. From 80 to 120 wild horses roam the sagebrush parks and pinyon-juniper covered hills which dominate the area. Natural barriers such as cliffs and canyons are supplemented with fencing to define the area and control horse movement. Every 3 to 4 years, 20 - 60 wild horses are rounded up and adopted out through the wild horse adoption program, to control herd levels.

WILD HORSE VIEWING: Wild horses are most frequently spotted in sagebrush parks scattered throughout the horse range, traveling in small bands made up of a stud and his harem of mares, or in bachelor bands of young stallions. Horses use the higher country in spring, summer and fall, moving to lower country in winter where there is less snow and feed is more easily found. Some of the best opportunities for catching a glimpse during the summer months is in the Indian Park or North Soda areas (the De Beque/Winter Park Rd entrance). And during the winter they may be spotted in Coal Canyon or Main Canyon (Coal Canyon entrance). NOTE: The herd is constantly on the move and viewing them is usually a matter of being at the right place at the right time"

There's a lot of hiking out there too. Dunno where we're camping yet. The 4WD road through the canyon doesn't open til the end of May, but maybe we'll look at another trail around Fruita or Grand Junction or somewhere. This is mainly a sightseeing trip, hopefully we'll see the herds, and do some hiking or MTB.

www.co.blm.gov/gjrj/gjrj.html --Grand Junction BLM area. Bangs Canyon for 4WD, Montrose is fairly close, and hundreds of miles of MTB.

-Sean

 

[devinsixtyseven]

Finally made it this past weekend. Saw a herd of about a dozen animals--looked like stallion and harem, plus one foal. Pretty cool.

Also hit the Fruita MTB trails for some good dirty fun, and ran part of Bangs Canyon...the sudden hailstorm and rain right before we entered didn't help anything, so we turned a couple miles in...soupy slick slop, sidehills, washouts, ruts and exposed hills are no good together.

Pics later!

 

[Pskhaat]

Wife & I were up that way 7+ years ago. Saw many horses on the trail, presumably quite wild due to their nature about us. Cool run.