Packing Adventures
Past and Future ~ 2002-2003

The past two summers have given my pack llamas and me some wonderful opportunities. Work with the local US Forest Service and the Wildlands Restoration Volunteers of Boulder, who do trail maintenance and restore overused areas in the Indian Peaks Wilderness area, always offers some challenges of how to carry the necessary supplies and equipment needed. But the summer of 2002 presented additional opportunities to get out, see some beautiful mountain areas, and introduce llama packers to people.

Beginning July 5th, I was invited to conduct an Elderhostel Llama Hiking session at CSU’s Pingree Park mountain campus. It is at 9000 ft. in a beautiful valley with meadows, lakes, high altitude trees, streams, and all surrounded by high peaks. I had been there only for two days in 2000, when Karen Kinyon and Sharon Beacham were leading an Elderhostel event which included every aspect of working with llama wool, as well as some hiking. This 2002 session was to concentrate on hiking with llamas and learning about their character and care. I took three of my packers, Ninja, High Spirits, and Rory. Deborah Cowan, coordinator of Elderhostel and other conferences at Pingree Park, brought her two llamas, Jaco and Mountain Sun, so we had five llamas to work with. We were also blessed to have John and Mary Ellen Barber as hosts and trail guides. John was retired from many years with the Forest Service as a civil engineer. He knew the trails in that area and also knows all the birds in that area.

The first day, after an introductory lecture and hands-on meeting with the llamas we saddled them and took a short hike around the valley and a nearby lake. As we headed east a moose emerged from the woods ahead of us. He stopped and stared at us until my Ninja made the alarm call, which sent him off into the bushes. Our second-day hike took us to a gorgeous view of a cirque in the Mummy Range. The third afternoon, as part of the lessons on llama care Carolann Evans came with a mom and baby for all to see, plus a chute for her demonstration on shearing, for which Deborah Cowan’s  two llamas were good candidates. The next day we had a more strenuous, full day lunch hike, arriving home in time to do the llama chores and make it to dinner. As a “rest” day following that harder hike, Karen Kinyon came with lots of carded llama wool, and everyone in the group completed making a felt llama hat. And we all learned that making felt is a fairly strenuous activity, too. In the end a group picture was taken with all of us wearing our felt hats. Our final hike was again a full day with lunch, which took us higher with spectacular views.

One of the delights of the week was that our group became friends with a Handbell Ringers group, often sharing dinner tables. They attended some of my evening presentations with llama videos, and our llama group attended their concert at the end of their session, conducted by their teacher, Steve Bush, a music professor from CSU.

In my group there were three women friends, avid hikers. Two of them were from Boulder and Louisville. At our first evening get-together with introductions, the lady from Boulder mentioned that she lived just east of Boulder and that someone with llamas in that neighborhood would come by her house when they were training llamas to drive to cart.  Guess who? These two ladies joined me the very day after our return from Pingree Park for my first work day for the Forest Service, leading two of the four llamas needed to carry all the supplies and tools for a project at Lost Lake, which presented our first interesting challenge.

Ed Self, organizer of the Wildlands Restoration Volunteers had us meet at the Hessie Trailhead on Friday to pack in the necessary supplies for work at Lost Lake. He warned me that there would be four roles of anti-erosion matting plus the various tools needed for about 20 volunteers.  He wasn’t sure about the weight of the roles of anti-erosion matting. We knew the roles were eight feet long and about 18 inches in diameter because my Greyfeather had carried one up to Diamond Lake the previous summer. We had had to cut the role in half, so he had a four-foot long piece on either side of his pack.  So here was our new challenge, but we solved the problem quite easily. With our stake lines we folded and tied each role firmly in half. We weighed each one with two of our packing scales and found that they weighed 40 pounds each. We then lashed one on either side of the pack frames on Greyfeather and Scout, who accepted this new bulky load as easily as Greyfeather did. The grass was so lush next to the parking area, compared to our then drought-plagued pastures at home, that both fellows sat down and munched happily while we loaded Ninja and High Spirits with the rest of the necessary tools.  For Ninja this included six ft. long pipes that the volunteers can make “stretchers” out of to carry rocks or dirt where needed.

Our second project was to return to the Mitchell Lake area where we had done four days of work the summer of 2001. In the parking area a large heap of fill dirt had been dumped. The volunteers for this project were teenagers from Boulder. With Ranger Glen Cook in charge along with Ed Self, water barriers were made to prevent the trail from washing out in heavy rains. Some of the students helped install logs at crucial points crosswise of the trail. Other students shoveled fill dirt into the four-gallon plastic buckets I brought along, loaded the buckets onto the llamas’ saddles, and led them to where the dirt was needed uphill of the installed logs. It had rained on the pile of fill dirt, so we found that each fairly full bucket weighed 45 pounds. So each llama was carrying 90 pounds on multiple trips. Fortunately, the trail was quite level, and we only had to go about a half a mile, plus or minus. At the end of four days on that project, Ed Self figured the llamas had hauled about 7,000 lbs. of the dirt.  In 2002 we only needed to do one day to finish up that aspect of the projects needed in that area. This summer there will be trail work further in beyond Mitchell Lake.

The third project of summer 2002 was in the newly designated James Peak Wilderness area.  Many parts of it have been heavily impacted in the past, and the Forest Service was beginning a multi-year program to improve conditions and protect sensitive areas. Many volunteers were recruited to reroute 1100 feet of trail in a sensitive wetland area. For this project, on Friday, my four packers carried in the tools plus all the necessary kitchen supplies for a two-night stay in the woods for the many volunteers. On Sunday we went in to bring out everything left. On this day the third friend of the avid hiking ladies from the Elderhostel week joined us. And RMLA members Gerry and Bobbi Losasso brought along their packer to help us out.

This day also presented us with a new challenge for one of my packers. When we arrived at the camping area in dense woods, Ed Self said that because of the large number of volunteers, he had set up a portable camp toilet, and he wondered if a llama could carry out the small but very heavy waste container.  Again I selected our experienced Greyfeather to manage this load. We put the heavy container in one of his panniers and then balanced the other pannier with numerous kitchen items including rolled up card tables placed vertically. The pack seemed pretty well balanced, but after hiking a short distance on the way out, I found it necessary to hang my own backpack high from the top of a card table. After that Greyfeather had no trouble with his odd-looking, asymmetrical load. According to the plans for trail relocation this summer, 35 to 40 volunteers and about 7 llamas will be needed. Anyone interested in the activities of the Wildlands Restoration Volunteers should look at their website: www.WLRV.org.

In addition to the Elderhostel and Forest Service packing activities, a director of a local Boulder YMCA day camp asked if we could arrange a llama lunch hike once every three weeks for 5th to 7th grade children. I chose a very easy trail I knew well starting from Camp Dick in the Middle Saint Vrain area.
There were to be about 24 children and two counselors for each hike. The camp bus would join us at the trailhead about 10:30.  After a bit of introduction about llamas from me, the children were divided into four groups and each group was assigned to one of my four packers. The lunches for each group were packed on “their” llama, and as we hiked the children could take turns leading the llama. Our lunch site was a nice meadow that slopes gently down to the stream. With the lunches unloaded, the llamas could munch the delicious grass while the children ate, played, climbed on rocks, waded in the water.  With the panniers reloaded after about an hour’s play, we hiked out in time for the bus to return the children to Boulder by 3:00. The same program has already started this year for “Camp Chief Niwot.”  Some of the children were in the program last year, and one boy in particular was disappointed that I had not brought Greyfeather along for the first hike, so I promised to bring him next time. Chatting with the various participants as we hiked, it was interesting to find that some of the children are very animal oriented and want to learn more.

In the long run, it is my hope that more people who enjoy and appreciate the mountains will also discover the benefits of packing with our wonderful llamas.