"EUREKA COUNTY, Nev. — Ambling across a desert valley, 100 or so wild horses congregate in and around muddy pools of water in a flat, arid section of the Bureau of Land Management's Pancake Herd Management Area.

Ordinarily, this water — remnants of spring melt from mountains in Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest — wouldn't be here in late July, but northeastern Nevada experienced its second unusually wet year in a row, and so the herd stays near the dirty water in the southern Newark Valley.

From a mile away, the valley looks like a kind of oasis, vast and green, containing not only the snowmelt water but also what appears to be ample forage inside the vast expanse of desert scrubland.

But it's a mirage."

Scott Streater reports for Greenwire September 9, 2019. [2]