Killpecker Sand Dunes and the Wild Horses
Near Rock Springs, Wyoming
About thirty miles north of Rock Springs, in a landscape that most travelers never see, lies one of the largest active sand dune systems in the United States. The Killpecker Sand Dunes stretch for many miles across the high desert of Sweetwater County, rising to impressive heights in places. They are active dunes, meaning the wind is still moving them, still reshaping them year by year. The sand is almost pure quartz, bleached to a pale cream by centuries of weather, and in the right light it glows against the dark volcanic ridge of the Leucite Hills behind it.
The dunes exist because of geography and prevailing winds. The Green River Basin collects sand eroded from the surrounding uplifts, and the persistent southwest winds push it northeast in a slow, enormous migration. Sand from old lake beds and eroded uplands has been exposed to that wind for thousands of years, and the dunes grew from that material over millennia.
The Killpecker area is managed by the Bureau of Land Management as a special recreation management area with overlapping uses that sometimes conflict: off-highway vehicle recreation, oil and gas leasing, wildlife habitat, and a designated wilderness study area where no motorized vehicles are permitted. The eastern end contains a set of ancient volcanic buttes, and the Boars Tusk, a solitary neck of volcanic basalt rising several hundred feet from the desert floor, stands as a landmark visible for miles.
Within this landscape roams a herd of wild horses. Wild horses from nearby herds range through the dune country and surrounding desert. Wyoming has several federally recognized wild horse herd management areas, and this corner of the Red Desert is among the most visually dramatic places to see them. On a still morning you can sometimes watch a band move along the edge of the dunes at a distance, the horses' manes catching the same wind that has been pushing the sand for ten thousand years.
