Saturday, December 23, 2006
Mustangs, today I treated Nanuk, Ayla and myself to a little trip to Cold Creek. I just wanted to get a little closer to the snow and visit an area that I find rather beautiful, it's at about 6000 feet elevation with breathtaking views into the valley that is between these mountains and the Desert National Wildlife refuge.
Lucky for us we also ran into two bands of mustangs as this area is home to many groups of these wild horses. I have seen as many as 5 groups in one day. I find these wild horses beautiful, as they are able to survive and thrive in an environment as arid and barren as our Southern Nevada high desert. Actually this whole area has little paths worn into the ground. They must be coming to these lower elevations in the winter and spring, as those are the only times I have seen them here. I am assuming they migrate to the higher elevations in the summer, where it is cooler and the vegetation isn't so dried out.
The young black and white stallion in the second picture with the four white legs was especially curious. He came all the way up to my car and just stood there looking at me in such a calm manner, I held out my hand and he gently nuzzled it, so I rubbed his nose a little bit, he nuzzled my hand some more. What a magical moment this was.
I took tons of pictures, one of them is a curious youngster with some very unusual coloring. 
The horses in this area are rather desensitized to humans and vehicles, as people routinely stop and take pictures of them the horses seem to realize that cars and people pose no threat. I used to go up to this area a lot and I have always found it amazing how these horses show only some mild curiosity but otherwise just go about their business while people walk around and take pictures of them. I have never seen any of them spook or show any signs of fear nor have I seen any threats like biting or kicking. 
Some of the horses in these pictures have some snow sticking to their noses as they were all busy munching the snow. It's hard to imagine that they find enough to eat in this terrain, I have seen them eat away the yoshua trees, now anybody who has ever touched one of those trees knows how tough they are.
// posted by ZaltanaAnatolians @ 6:15 PM 
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