Death row

Sand Wash Basin is located in the northwestern part of Colorado. 

It's a remote, mostly unpopulated area. The closest town is Maybell, population seventy six.

Maybell has a post office, volunteer fire department, gas station, general store, campground and two hotels, only one of which is still in business. If you want to eat at a restaurant, it's a twenty five mile drive.

The weather is harsh. The landscape is forbidding.

Vegetation is mostly comprised of sagebrush, bunchgrass and saltbush. It's enough to support some animal agriculture, mostly sheep...

and goats.

We did see a few cows, but they were close to towns and living on irrigated pastures.

Of course, there's wild life, too. In addition to feral horses, this part of Colorado is home to elk, mule deer, Greater sage-grouse, white-tailed prairie dogs and pronghorns. 

We saw so many pronghorns.

But most of them were no longer living.

I don't usually share pictures of dead animals, but they were as much a part of this trip as the bad roads and mustangs. 

Over the course of three days we saw dead deer, dead elk, dead horses and way too many dead pronghorn to count. Highway 318 is miles and miles and miles of dead pronghorn hanging off fences. I have never seen anything like it. The sight - and smell - of death was everywhere.

The rest of the photos are under the cut. I know a lot of people don't want to see them, but the constant reminder that nature is harsh, and this land is still wild was an essential part of our trip to Sand Wash Basin.