Popular Wild Horse Tour is Back
The visitor center at Spring Creek Basin
On Sunday, October 7, we will again offer an elective field trip to Disappointment Valley to view the Bureau of Land Management’s Spring Creek Basin herd, a model wild horse herd where PZP darting has kept the population stable for years.
This day-long elective is self-directed. Interested parties will meet in front of Rite Aid, 28 Town Plaza, Durango. More details to follow.
Visitors will observe mustangs on the 22,000 acre Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area and at the abutting mustang sanctuary. Mustang advocate, TJ Holmes, will give a tour of the visitor center and discuss behavior, social structure, diet, and modern on-range management practices such as fertility control.
Wild horse at Spring Creek Basin
Please note: Disappointment Valley is a two-hour-plus drive from Durango. Interested parties should plan on renting a car or making car pool arrangements with fellow BHPS attendees. We suggest you pack lunch, snacks, drinks, binoculars, cameras, and change-of-weather layers.
I went to Disappointment Valley last year, as part of the BHP Summit and was thoroughly enthralled by the experience. It is pretty much a full day trip (including the traveling back and forth from Durango), but it is well worth it. TJ Holmes was excellent at presenting information at the beginning, but she was even more gracious in all the questions everyone asked of her along the route. We had a chance to stop several times in our vehicle caravan to get out, take photos, ask questions, walk around a bit. It truly was an awesome experience and I highly recommend it to anyone who is planning on attending the Summit this fall.