Among the most cherished sights in the badlands are the bands of feral horses that range the south unit of the national park — sorrels, grays, duns and roans descended from ranch stock and, the stories say, cavalry mounts that slipped their fences generations ago. They graze the high ground and water in the draws, wild and watchful.

Bands on the Ridgeline

Each band is led by a stallion and organized around the mares and their foals, and watchers who return year after year come to know individual horses by their color and their markings. The bands shift and split as young stallions challenge for mares, so that the herd's story is always being rewritten on the ridgelines.

From the almanac's reckoning:

• The horse bands range the south unit of the national park.
• They descend from ranch stock and, by tradition, stray cavalry mounts.
• Each band is led by a stallion and centered on mares and foals.

Their place in the park has been debated, for they are not native and they compete with other grazers, yet few visitors leave unmoved by the sight of a band cresting a butte against the sky. The almanac numbers the wild horses among the park's living emblems of the untamed west.