Help! info needed for a visit to the HMA"S

[prizmbluekigers]

We wanted to see if someone could help us. Rick and I are heading to the HMA’s this weekend to (hopefully) film some stock footage of the Kigers and we would appreciate some details on where to camp (Kevin & Lisa camped at a water hole) and hike in the Kiger HMA to have the best chance to film. Any info would help. For reference points, if you could use the parking area for viewing and the corral below that. I think from the corral, we can move downhill to the water hole I have heard about, but is it a water hole or Kiger Creek? We have topo maps and see a corral listed on our map in the vicinity of the viewing area, but I am not sure if it is the same one or if it refers to a private corral.

Also, last year Dianne I think told of a way to get from the Kiger HMA to the Riddle HMA without going all the way back out to the paved road and then taking Highway 78 down to the herd. We think we found the road and will try it even if no one confirms the route, but if you have done it we would appreciate some directions. We will be on foot or in the truck, but we have all weekend and can hike a fair distance so we are hoping to do the Kiger HMA and if we are successful we will move to the Riddle HMA and try our luck.

Also, we will be out there on and off for the next year on weekends so if you plan to ride out there and want to be part of a documentary, please let us knows and we can provide more details. We aren’t saying too much now as we are in the early stages of the project and completion is a year or two away.

Thanks much,

Bobbe and Rick

[DianneC]

Hey Bobbe, can you see how green I am from where you are? Sounds like great fun. We camped along the road to the viewing area down low and hiked from there since we only have 2W drive. But that's a long hike. Kevin and Lisa can give better info if you are able to get in on the rough roads. Best person I know of for Riddle access is Shauna. They used quads and got to see the Riddle horses. I think there is a way up from the Alford desert side at Juniper Grade by Tencent Lake that is pretty easy. We hiked up that way once but didn't see any fresh sign, lots of old sign though. You can also come in from Hywy 78 to Anderson Valley and then left and up at the T toward Juniper Grade, but it was so swampy when we were there we explored toward Riddle Mtn instead and didn't see any sign at all.

I was talking about getting into the Smyth Creek (Smith on some maps) area after our last trip. I think you can go straight up by the viewing area but again, we didn't have high clearance with our little truck.
Yes, there is a watering hole down the ravine from the corrals below the viewing area. That would be the way I'd hike in next time.
Benchmark maps were wonderful.

[stormyranch]

I also think your best bet would be to hike down from the lookout. The horses are usually a mile or two away on both sides of the ravine. There is a good camping spot along the road about half way up to the lookout. Also a meadow down the road past the lookout. We camped there once.

[prizmbluekigers]

Thanks for the info. As of yesterday the road to the Kiger viewing area is not open - dozers are working on it, so unless it opens by Friday we will have to go to the Riddle HMA. We have a F-150 4WD so we aren't too worried about clearance with the high profile tires, but swamp is another thing. We planned on hiking some of the HMA, but carring a professional size video camera over hill and dale will be interesting for Rick. IF we see any horses we will post our findings here.
Anyone ever tried walkie-talkies there? We have some with a 22 mile range, but that's optimistic in the mountains I think. Should be a good weekend for camping.

[DianneC]

Shauna had her kids with her on Riddle and seems like they were using walkie talkies. You might do well to check with her.

[prizmbluekigers]

We spent most of two days on the Kiger HMA and we saw more horses than I have ever seen in one visit. We found nothing in the area of the Kiger View point, despite ranging the area for a few hours, but we gained some valuable info on the terrain and where we can and can’t go. Saturday, we went in a different way, in the road by the ant hill. It is a long way in, and for those of you who have been back that way, we were way on the other side of the old horse trap at Poison Creek. We found no fresh sign at the water hole but we continued on past that until we figure we were about due west of the viewing area. The first band we say was 3 horses; two duns (one a stallion) and grulla, and dun mares. They were about a quarter of a mile away on a hillside and the coats of the duns were what I spotted first as they stood out against the background of the open area where they were grazing. They all looked healthy with shiny coats and well fed. When we lost sight of them in the trees we went a little further south and again saw the dun coats stand out. This time there were six horses; two grullas and four duns and I think one of the grullas was the dam of one of the duns. If it was her foal, it was well over a year old. (missed in the roundup or turned back out?). We saw one smaller group of three, or a part of the 6 horse band (we disagree about this but as we were about 1/4 of a mile away, we can’t be sure). So we say a total of 11 or 8 horses, no foals. We saw Pronghorn, deer and the carcass of a large cow near the waterhole and two rattlesnakes. The mosquitoes were vicious, so take plenty of bug spray. I worried about the horses scenting the bug spray well in advance of sighting us so I tried to not use it. Fool that I am, I soon sprayed from head to toe for self preservation.

We haven’t processed any of the footage but if I can figure out the editing software we will post some of it to view and we will be back out there at least two ore times this summer. I really want to do it on a horse sometime. We saw some nice horses so you would think the next foal crop would be slightly better than the last adoption. It was fun and I can’t wait to go again

[stormyranch]

Hi Bobbe, I was going to tell you about the ant hill road, but last fall it was so bad I figured it would be too hard to travel. The corrals at poison creek are were Kevin and I have always camped. But after last time he said that woudl be the last time as the road was too bad. Glad you had such a great time! We always go in September. I have been there when the misquitos are out and the horses are torchered along with us.
Lisa

[DianneC]

Did you make it to the other side of Symth Creek? The bands you saw sound similar to the ones we saw looking across the ravine.

[prizmbluekigers]

I want to go again!!!

Dianne, isn’t Smith (Smyth) Creek over toward the east side of the HMA? I was told there was no fence separating part of the Kiger HMA, but is that true or are the horses at Smith Creek segregated? If so, this wasn’t the same band. How would they get through the fence? The road to the viewing area was worked on recently and it is no worse than

We went right at the ant hill back in by the old horse trap which took us sort of southwest. And if you think the road was bad last year Lisa, it probably wasn’t any better this year. We went further than the trap and it got worse. ATV’s would be the way to go I think, but we had 3 spares so we went. The further you go, the looser you will apply the word “road”. Try one step above game trail. The rocks are the worst thing, they are everywhere.

We watched the video on our large TV and found a horse in the picture we missed seeing when we filmed (Clever Grulla hiding in the trees). Now we need to get closer for better footage. Next time if we can find a band or bands, we will be in place by about 6:30 AM and we will wait for them to appear. The one stallion that Rick surprised was not in a big hurry to leave; he just casually moved off and took the other horse with him.

If that is the old trap, do we know where the new one is? Also, one more question. I was told Yank Springs comes right out of the ground and has the ruins of rock foundations there. I thought I was told it is north and west of the viewing area, so what water is this? When you stand in the viewing area looking south toward the corral and the juniper ridge behind it, I thought if you went to the ridge and then east and down the hill there was water or a creek or spring. Am I confused? Probably. These were verbal directions so I may have blended water hole info.

Next step is to try video transfer tonight. I we are successful; I can post some of it.

[DianneC]

I found a pretty good satellite map of the area. www.panoramio.com/map/#lt=42.987572&ln=-118.560162&z=4&k=1&a=1&tab=1
In this view the town of Diamond is in the upper left corner. Large green area just above the bottom in the center is Poison Creek and the light area just to the left of the bottom center is Mesteno Flats. At about 11 o'clock from center is a section of road that looks like a 3. Ant Hill is just to the right of the lowest part of the 3 and we camp at the bottom of the 3. You can zoom in on areas and move around but it becomes unstable on my computer after a while.
Bobbe, yes, on the other side of the ravine. If you turned off on the little track going up the hill just past Ant Hill the ravine of Smyth Creek would have been NE of there. You can see the dry (when we were there anyway) man made reservoir as a very light spot on the map at about 1 o'clock from the center.
PS For those of you who have not experienced the roads, the map is a composite so the roads are drawn in, they are not really that good or that wide.

[prizmbluekigers]

Thanks again Dianne. Rick says I am map challenged, so I now see the distance from Smyth Creek to the area where we saw the band and Rick said it was about 7 miles – we were way south of the Ant Hill. I found several references to areas such as Burnt Flat (can’t locate it on a map so it may not be officially called that, so we are going to find out all that we can from the BLM folks before we go back out again later this month. I have a call in to Ramona now. We still want to cover the area on foot from the view point going south and west. When we went out to remove the wire last year we saw horses over there. We found some more wire, not as much as before but I picked up about 2 twenty foot pieces that were attached to nothing. Let’s hope the lightening isn’t as severe out there as they project this weekend.

[DianneC]

Lisa, Sounds like fun! I think the hike down to the reservoir from the viewing area would be interesting. Let us know how it goes!