Wild Horses Couldn't Keep Us Away

The Salt River

Two Stallions fighting for the attention of the herd’s mares.

It’s never a sure thing that you’ll see wild horses at the Salt River north of Phoenix.

Heck, in this case it wasn’t even a sure thing that we would go … it rained pretty hard the night before.

But in the end, it was nearly perfect. A nice cool, mostly cloud covered morning.

Fishermen along the banks of the Salt River

We slept a little later than we had initially intended. But because of the clouds and rain, arriving at the river around 7:30am worked out just fine.

The first place we stopped didn’t have horses (note: these are all NPS recreation areas, so you’ll have to pay a daily fee, or display your America the Beautiful pass in your dash if you have one).

But there were plenty of people fishing.

He caught a trout

If you know me at all by now, you’ll understand that I can’t not take pictures of birds pretty much anywhere I go. That said, I’m a little bit sad that I’ve gotten to the point where I almost didn’t take this shot because “it’s just a great blue heron”.

A great blue heron in a tree near the parking lot of our first stop.

We found a little trail down the right side of the river. Since it was elevated, we had some nice views along the way.

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But sadly no horses.

And, since the radar showed some slightly heavier rain coming our way, I decided to head back to the Jeep so that my camera wouldn’t get too wet. The Canon 80D is weather sealed, the Sigma 150-600 lens was a bit more questionable.

Kelly of course had to see what was up around the corner.

When we met up again, I thought we were done.

I programmed “home” in the GPS and started the Jeep.

But then Kelly asked if we could take Bush highway home because there was another spot she wanted to check out.

It was only a mile or two out of our way!

So off we went.

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When we arrived at our second destination, we initially took the trail to the left. The view along the river was nice, and we even saw a couple of interesting things flying overhead.

I thought this was an Osprey when I saw it fly by, but wasn’t sure until I processed the images on the computer after we got home.

Not sure exactly what this motorized paragliding things is. But Kelly wants one!

Sadly, still no horses.

I felt like we’d struck out.

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But we decided to follow the path to the right.

About 15 minutes down that path, Kelly, who was up ahead of me, was feeling a little dejected, and actually thinking about heading back to the Jeep.

Then she saw something off in the distance.

The super zoom camera on her phone confirmed it was horses!

She ran back and called out to me …

Her: “Hey Todd, there are horses”

Me: “You see them, or you heard there are horses?”

Her: “Yes, there’s a whole herd!”

Then I got my own first glimpse:

At this point the herd of horses was still a couple hundred yards away

If this was the most we had seen, we may have still considered it a successful outing.

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But there was more …

We soon found ourselves right in the middle of the herd.

So of course I started taking pictures (Canon 80D, Sigma 150-600 lens)

Kelly also captured some great shots with her Pixel 10 Pro XL phone.

There are many more horse pictures, but I think we are going to put the rest of them on the Just Over That Next Hill Facebook Page

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Finally, we also met up with a nice lady (Christine Roberson) who is a regular there at the Salt River. She shared a lot of useful information about the horses that definitely contributed to our positive experience … and to some of the pictures we were able to capture.

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Your turn …

Have you ever seen the wild horses?

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Til next time,

~ Todd

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