(This story is very photo dependent, so save it for later if you’re on a slow connection or a mobile device)

So, we’re on our way driving down off Gooseberry Mesa, a little slice of mountain biking heaven in the backcountry near Zion National Park.

There are two roads that leave the top and wind back down to civilization. This time, since we were going to Zion and not back towards the main highway, we ended up taking a longer, steeper road out. Very cool:

Along the way, there is a horse hanging out right smack dab in the middle of the road:

We take a couple pictures and give the horse a couple minutes to move on. He does not. We start to approach slowly.

As we get closer, we notice two more horses off to one side of the road:

We approach the horse in the road slowly, and try to go to the far left side of the road, so as not to cut-off his connection to his buddies.
Getting between one wild animal and the rest, I hear, is generally a bad idea.

As we slow to a stop about 10 feet short of the horse, not only has he not moved, but he seems not the least bit put off my our large, noisy vehicle.

And this horse is huge. His head is above ours, considerably, as we sit in our Forester looking up, wondering what this guy’s deal is.

He approaches the car and starts to smell it, and brushes up against the car’s side, as though it’s another animal.

Then he starts licking the car:

I assume this is to snack on either salt or bugs. Unfortunately I’d put the camera down when he actually pressed his nose flush up against the windshield!

I try backing up a bit, but to no avail, the horse just strolls right up to the car’s new position.

Then I notice, all-of-the-sudden, one of the the other two horses appears in the passenger side mirror, starring right at me:

A second later, the third horse appears in the drivers’ side mirror:

and I say -only somewhat kiddingly- to Andrew: Are we about to get robbed?

We are surrounded, blocked in on all sides, in the middle of nowhere.
If you travel into the bad parts of town, or internationally, you know that this type of blocking maneuver is a favorite of thieves, and a setup to be avoided at all costs.

In this case, we are surrounded by gigantic, possibly wild, horses, rather than ne’er-do-wells. But the threat alarms go off in my head just the same. It is extremely comical, and a little nerve-wracking at the same time.

I try sounding the horn lightly. Each time the horses perk up, but aren’t motivated to move an inch farther from the car.

Finally they all congregate towards the front of the car

and I am able to safely back up slowly, and then approach with some speed off to the other side of the road.

After this delay that was both trivial (in nature) and non-trivial (in the amount of time spent) we were ready to continue on with the rest of our journey.