The Kiger Mustang is a strain of mustang horse located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Oregon. Originally feral horses with specific conformation traits discovered in 1977, the name also applies to their bred-in-captivity progeny. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administers two herd management areas for Kiger Mustangs in the Burns District—Kiger and Riddle Mountain, in the Steens Mountain area. DNA testing has shown that Kiger Mustangs are descended largely from Spanish horses brought to North America in the 17th century, a bloodline thought to have largely disappeared from mustang herds before the Kiger horses were found.
The Kiger mustangs are only found in one place in the world: Oregon! As cool as the first herd of mustangs was, the Kigers are iconic. While reviewing the map, I found a place called “Kiger Gorge”. We decided to go check it out! There were signs sporadically along the utterly shitty gravel road for “Kiger viewing area”. I’m not lying about the road being terrible either… it was probably the worst we had been on besides the high rock canyon where we broke the tire. It was worth it though! The horses were pretty far away, unfortunately. Unlike the first herd that I could have gotten super close to, the Kigers saw us pretty much immediately and disappeared into the trees right away. There was a big difference between the two herds in this regard: one group is fairly socialized and it was very obvious that the kigers are truly wild mustangs!
Saw a few deer while driving also. Much less majestic and impressive.
At this point we were halfway through our last day out in the wilderness and after finally making our way off of the road to the mustangs, we were kind of done driving and decided to just head back into Bend. We got a hotel for the night (Amazing! Showers and wifi and a mattress!) and left the next morning for home. Instead of the normal way of I-5 through Portland, we instead went through Yakima, which is a very pretty drive. We even saw Mt. Rainier! Makes me wish I would have taken the time this summer to do some more hiking!