Post Meadows Horse Camp, Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge, Oregon

I had always wondered about the horse camp in the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge since there was no information anywhere to be found about it. The only thing I had ever heard from someone was that the road to get to it was crappy. But since I enjoy finding new places, and I like to get off the beaten path, I decided to check it out. I called ahead to make sure it was open, but unfortunately the girl I talked to knew nothing, and ended up giving me conflicting information. It turns out this camp is always open, as long as the roads to get to it are passable. It is in a remote area 65 miles from the nearest town with services, (Lakeview) and 24 of those miles are gravel.

Sunset at Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge.

I spent the first day just driving, but once I got to the refuge and the road turned to gravel, I heard a loud noise and realized right away what had happened, my spare tire had fallen out from underneath my truck...again. This had happened once before in California, and I had already had a stern talk with Les Schwab about putting it back under there correctly, anyway this time the metal bracket was half on and half off, so I dealt with that situation, threw the tire into the back of the truck, and continued on. There is a steep climb to get up onto the rim, and then another long drive to get to the horse camp. The gravel roads are mostly okay, with some washboard sections, but the last 14 miles are on the more rustic Blue Sky Rd.
The horse camp is situated another half of a mile off of Blue Sky, and it is not a road you should attempt if it is at all muddy. I could see the corrals from afar and that no one was there, and when I finally arrived I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

Post Meadows has a very big cow corral that is divided into three separate areas, which is also attached to a large fully fenced pasture. There was lush green grass in the corrals and in the parking area. Although I brought a bale of hay, I never opened it during my stay. There is stock water available from Guano Creek, but it is about 300 feet away. There is also a bathroom, and there is no fee for camping, or to enter the refuge. You are not allowed to dispersed camp, so this is the only place to camp with horses. There are no picnic tables, and you are not allowed to have campfires.

The sign on Blue Sky Rd., the camp is half a mile from here.

The refuge is huge at 278,000 acres and is very spread out. It has one campground down on the flat land before climbing up in elevation, then there is Hot Springs Campground which is closer to the refuge headquarters, and then the horse camp is much farther away, all alone, but it in my opinion it has the best location and scenery. Lastly there is Guano Creek Campground, a hunters camp that is only open between August 1st to November 1st. Update: In 2024 I returned to Hart Mountain, this time without my horse. I drove over to see the horse camp again and was surprised to see that it has had a major remodel. The corrals are still there but the pasture area has been turned into a loop drive area with six gravel back in spots. They also added quite a few hitching rails, several water troughs and an extra bathroom.

Post Meadows Horse Camp in 2020

Post Meadows in 2024

New hitching rails, in 2024

I had printed out a map from the refuge web page before I left, and so I planned a large loop for my first ride. But I got distracted from that plan because I saw a road going up into the hills, that was not on the map. I soon figured out that besides the few maintained main roads, they have a lot of secondary roads, like the one the camp is on, which are closed to motorized vehicles during the winter, and in fact were not even opening until June 15th, presumably to make sure everything had dried out appropriately. So although all the secondary roads which are great for riding, are on the map, there are what I started calling "secondary secondary" roads which continue on forever, some you could take a high clearance vehicle on, and some that are just for foot and horse traffic. There are no real rules about horse travel, you can just go wherever you want, which worked for me. So I started by continuing to follow Blue Sky Rd. to where it ends at the Old Camp Warner Historic Grave Site.

The grave site.

The trees ahead are a large grove of Ponderosa's.

Then I climbed up onto the ridge, otherwise known as Hart Mountain. Once up on top there are views for days. I followed one road a pretty long time, and then looped back over past Warner Peak and was looking down onto the tiny town of Plush, and the Hart Lake area.

I had already seen a few antelope at this point, one while driving, and one that was peeking over a hill at me the evening before, but I flushed out a few more on this ride. There are a lot of single bucks, and since I don't think hardly anyone ever rides on the refuge, they were pretty astonished to see a horse. I didn't even try to get pictures of them at that point, they would bounce away and then get to where they were just far enough to be out of good camera range, then stop and stare at me, and snort like a horse does when they don't know what the heck they are seeing.

Looking down onto Hart Lake.

On top of Hart Mountain.

On top of Hart Mountain.

Hart Lake.

The road ended at this view to the west, amazing how many lakes there are.

That evening an older fellow with a dog came and camped near me, he was at the refuge looking for Sandhill Cranes, but he left early in the morning. He told me there were Bighorn Sheep up in the hills I had just been that day, but unfortunately I had not spotted any.

After our rides my pony would have her nap next to me.

The third day, I decided to ride Barnhardy Rd, which goes through the hunters camp first, and then continues on to the popular Hot Springs Campground. The map I had wasn't really great for trying to judge mileage, but I rode down through a valley with rolling hills and aspen groves until I got to the Barnhardy Cabin. Then I turned back and went along Skyliner Rd/Trail to a couple of the lookouts. I did not want to continue on what could have been a loop from there, since I would have had to do a lot of riding on the main road to get back to camp, so I went cross country instead and dropped down out of the hills. On this ride I encountered a male and female antelope pair having a siesta, the male was very curious, and so I finally got my first chance at some decent pictures. They eventually ran off in front of me for awhile, but then doubled back, so they were in the same area when I returned. Much to their chagrin, I returned at top speed over a hill at a canter, and interrupted their nap for the second time in one day.

Where Blue Sky Rd. ends and Barnhardy Rd. starts.

Riding up Barnhardy Rd. towards Guano Creek Campground.

Beneath Warner Peak on Barnhardy Rd.

An Aspen grove on Barnhardy Rd.

Barnhardy Cabin.

I had no idea what this was, but it turns out it measures snow depth.

Interrupted a herd of deer that were bedded down.

Views from a lookout. The miniscule white dot with a black line next to it,  is my rig and the corrals.

The first antelope I got a picture of.

That evening I had antelope trotting by, coyotes yapping, and birds singing, what more could I want.
Ahhhh...solitude.... until, another man in a van decided to spend the night, he was from California, and was there to photograph wildlife. He wasn't having any luck getting pictures of the antelope yet, but he told me he was also going to get up in the middle of the night to shoot the milky way.

The horse camp is on Post Meadows Rd. and I wanted to follow it and see where it continued on to, so I did just that on day four. After awhile I came across Big Flat Ranch...I actually have no idea what it is called, I made that up, but it is an old abandoned ranch in an area called Big Flat, so it seems appropriate. This road gets pretty rocky after awhile, climbs up a hill, and then I had views down to Crump Lake and what I assume was a dried up version of Reservoir Lake. This was an especially hot day, but it clouded over eventually, which was much appreciated.

On Post Meadows Rd.

Warner Creek crosses Post Meadows Rd.

Big Flat Ranch, so named by yours truly.

Looking down onto Crump Lake.

I had had three lovely nights thus far, but on the fourth night a few mosquitoes meandered by, then a few more, until all hell broke loose. I ran for cover and had to leave my poor horse outside, my entire truck and trailer were covered in mosquitoes and they were all staring at me through the screens with an obvious amount of blood lust. I assumed once it got dark they would disappear, but it was a warm night and they stuck around. That night was not a restful one, I would be sleeping and all of a sudden there would be a buzzing in my ear, or one would land one my nose. I couldn't figure out how they were getting in, but in the morning the mystery was solved as I saw that one of my screens had a slight gap between it and the window frame. My horse despises mosquitoes and at 5 am when I looked out, she was either walking very quickly, or trotting around the field, and I have a feeling that was how her entire night went.  Although I had planned one more ride and another night's stay, that was all out the window, I had to get out of there ASAP. I ran around throwing everything into the truck, grabbed my horse, threw her into the trailer along with a cloud of mosquitoes, and started driving. Once we got away from the creek, proximity to water being the culprit, I stopped and checked on the situation inside the trailer, it turned out that once I had started driving, they all panicked and clung to the windows, so at least they were leaving my horse alone.

We were both pretty bedraggled by then, I had a headache and my horse looked droopy, but I decided just to do a short ride on my way out of the refuge, so I stopped near the headquarters and rode to Petroglyph Lake and along Poker Jim Rd. I was able to find room to park along the side of Hart Mountain Rd., most of the secondary roads don't have parking areas at all, so it is not easy to stop at very many places, at least with a truck and trailer. As I was getting ready three young antelope came right past the truck and did their usual gawking thing. At one point I looked over and a buck was just across the road from me. Finally, some good pictures!

Curious youngsters check out me and my horse.

A buck gets quite close.

Petroglyph Lake.

There are quite a few petroglyphs at the lake.

Petroglyph Lake.

On the way back, on Poker Jim Rd.

One would think after this ride, that would be the end of my story, but this was a Saturday and a friend had texted me about an upcoming storm that was supposed to hit Central OR. I told her it was not forecast to come near where I was, which ended up being true, but as I attempted to drive off the refuge, I got hit by heavy, heavy winds. The truck was struggling, and I had no idea how bad the wind was until a lid blew off one of my water barrels, and I pulled over and I had to wrestle with the door to even get out of the truck. As I was driving through the Summer Lake area, tree branches were breaking and being flung out onto the highway. I remembered seeing a good looking dispersed spot just outside of Summer Lake and so I got that far, and was done driving for the day. In the meantime Central OR had got the brunt of heavy rain, huge hail, and quite a lot of property damage, as well as power outages. The sky had turned an odd shade of green, and the word "tornado" was being thrown around. When I did get home on Sunday, my place was unscathed, in a way I am glad I missed it, but in another way, I imagine it would have been a pretty interesting experience.

Total antelope count for the whole trip: 44


GPS COORDINATES TO POST MEADOWS