How do we find horses? Find water, and you’ll find horses. Horses typically drink 10-12 gallons of water per day in the summer and so finding water sources is usually the best way to locate horses. There are times when horses prefer on waterhole over another; it doesn’t seem clear why one is preferable. On the range, we utilize GPS via an app called Gaia, which also has a desktop version. This year we finally consolidated over a decade of maps, waypoints, and other geological data.
For example, Sand Wash Basin is 157,730 acres, including 154,940 acres of public land, 1,960 acres of private land and 840 acres of state land. Great Desert Basin is 617, 030 acres total comprised of Onaqui Mountain: 205,394 acres and Cedar Mountain: 411,636 acres. These are enormous, rugged, and isolated areas; it is important to know where you are and to always keep an eye on the gas gauge. Utilizing Google Earth and transferring the KML (keyhole markup language) files to Gaia helps to keep us oriented.
Before our Mustang Walkabout, we spend hours reviewing Google Earth data and identifying and transferring the important landmarks such as the ‘Bears Ears’ or the Clay Cave at Sand Wash Basin.
The Bears Ears. A useful landmark at Sand Wash Basin, Colorado
These are some of our waypoints. We drop them near waterholes, geographical features, and structures.
Locating water on maps…
It isn’t as easy to locate water on Google Earth in some of the management areas as one might think. The colour of water is a pale green to dark blue depending upon the horse management area. In the first image, there are two water holes. The second image enlarges and points out the waterholes at Sand Wash Basin. We have our own names for some of the waterholes because there is usually no one around to ask- Copper Pond is well known to most and named for the greenish hills behind the waterhole. Sunrise is our personal name for the waterhole opposite Copper Pond.
Two stallions spar on the hill above Copper Pond- note the the oxidized copper (pale green) on the hill.
Horse Trails:
This is a waterhole (we call it ‘the one with the reeds’) at Great Desert Basin. Note the stellate pattern of faint trails leading to the water (the pink line is the road/two-track leading up to the waterhole). These represent horse trails, trails that are used over and over and become part of the landscape. We often use these trails to locate water sources. At Great Desert Basin the waterholes are all manmade and are often quite green.
And sometimes we see wild horses on Google Earth photographs (blue arrows)
The waterhole called ‘the one with the reeds’ at Onaqui in the later afternoon
Waterholes at Night
Horses coming to two waterholes at night. We place trail cams up at several waterholes to capture video of horses during the day and night at every management area we visit. This trail cam is near Sheepherders at Sand Wash Basin, Colorado.
This waterhole is a manmade structure called the Solar Pump located at Lake Draw in Sand Wash Basin, Colorado
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