Trailing to the Mountains

Our sheep walk EVERYWHERE. From the desert country near Rock Springs in the winter, to the lambing grounds surrounding Kemmerer in the spring, to the Bridger-Teton National Forest for the summer, and back down to the corrals near Kemmerer before heading to the fall country between LaBarge and Farson. They cover a lot of miles and get to see a lot of country. Not only them, but their herders, horses, dogs, and camp tenders like me. It’s about a 150 mile trek one-way, but broken up into a whole year, and this is just the trail miles, not including the every day grazing miles that add up to their “daily steps”. Thankfully, sheep like to walk, and are constantly on the move. Even on the days they aren’t specifically “trailing” they still walk while grazing the entire day, heading for water then back to higher ground, grazing and walking across their entire allotment. 

It’s June 24, 2024, 6:00 am. It’s our first day on the trail to the forest! A time full of excitement for the coming of our time in the mountains. Every herd but one lambs on the south side of the highway, so each herd must be crossed to the north side to begin the trail. Mom and I arrive at the camp with our horses south of town. Oftentimes with this herd, we have had wrecks with lambs running back everywhere. After a few years of being there to help and gathering scattered lambs, we’ve learned a few tricks that help us to make it through this area. Although it is kind of fun getting to chase the lambs down, watch your dog keep them together, and rope the single runaways, it’s much more fun to have everything go smoothly without problems. We meet Teo where he’s trailing the herd off the bed ground towards the highway, and Ever is leading the string of 5 horses over to where we will cross. The herd of 2,400 ewes and lambs follow the railroad tracks under the highway without a single runaway.

We continue helping them push the herd for a little bit, gathering a couple crippled or sick lambs that can’t make the trail onto our horses, before heading back for the trucks. Mom hooks on to the camp and supply wagon to move it to their next stop, and I head to the grocery store to get their order. By the time I am done shopping for their 2 weeks worth of food, the herd is ready to be crossed across the railroad tracks. From here, this herd will cross highway 233 to the east, and head north up Sheep Mountain and along Commissary ridge to their allotment. Before starting up Sheep Mountain, they move out of their camp and into their pack outfit- canvas tent, cots, portable stove, kitchen boxes, and paniards for the rest of the summer.

Day 2, herd 2. Today we cross the herd that I helped during lambing the most this year. I notice my unique little speckled lamb with the greenish eyes that I grafted on a ewe while we are counting them. After we count them, we cross them through a gate, across the highway, into another gate, and through a big tunnel that goes under the railroad tracks. This crossing presents lots of obstacles to cause a bunch of lambs to want to turn and run the opposite direction, so we gather a big crew and highway patrolmen to help stop traffic while we cross. Prior to our crossing time, I had to get a man, his dogs, and horses from another lambing ground to bring here as he will be going with this herd for the summer. After the final ewes, lambs, and guard dogs make their way through the tunnel, I unload Edgar’s horses and dogs and drive across the highway to gather Edwis and Luis’s horses and dogs and take them to the corral north of town where they will be getting a new herd in a couple days. In the midst of all this, camps are being moved and water is being hauled to where we will need it on the trail.

The next three days we count and cross the next three herds in the same spot. My uncle Dave counts the total ewes and lambs, my mom counts just the ewes, and the rest of us hold them in place. We count each herd, ewes and total, before starting on the trail so that we know how many lambs we’ve lost since docking, and how many total are heading to the forest to be able to keep track throughout the summer. 

We then have to push them through a gate and through the wildlife underpass under the highway. We learned the hard way in previous years that it is helpful to bring the orange plastic snow fence in behind the last of the herd so the lambs can’t bust on us as easily and all get away. Unfortunately, on our first bunch, a semi drove over us at the wrong time, scared all the lambs that were in the back of the herd, and caused them all to run back, some of them getting past us. When a bunch of lambs decide to bust like that, there’s really not that much you can do to stop them, even with the help of the snow fence. Once the bunch runs back, they all split up- two run west, three south, five east, and a couple in between. Each person that’s horseback sticks with a set of lambs, ropes one when it singles itself out and tries to get them all back together and towards the underpass. All the dogs are helping to catch and direct the lambs as well, sometimes very helpful, sometimes chasing them way too far in the wrong direction. We each are packing a lamb by the time we are able to try crossing the bigger bunch, and a few more find themselves through a loop before they’ve all made it to the north side of the scary pathway. Except for one lamb, who finds a hole in the fence and makes his way on the highway. I am definitely expecting him to either get hit by a vehicle or take forever to capture. Somehow, as if it was planned, he finds the deer escape hole in the high fence and jumps down on the same side as the rest of the herd! We couldn’t have herded him through that if we tried, a little reminder that God is always with us.

Once on the north side of the highway, we have to trail east a little ways before also crossing the railroad tracks and going through our final gate on the other side. On our first day of crossing here, there was a huge line of railroad workers and their equipment parked right where we normally cross. This herd was the old ewes. The ones who have walked this trail at least 5 times in their lives already, and when we directed them in a different direction to go around the barricade, they were confused and didn’t want to move. While mom was trying to get the front end of the sheep moving, the guy that was leading the string of horses was  keeping sheep off the tracks, Carlos and I had to crawl through the fence where a huge bunch of lambs were trying to escape, and the railroad workers were watching in awe at the mass amount of animals we were attempting to move. In the midst of it they had to call the oncoming train to stop; it seemed to take us forever to get the herd past all the commotion. Thankfully they stopped the train, because my dog and I had to run over and across the tracks a couple times to catch a stubborn lamb. We finally made it though, and didn’t encounter a railroad barricade or runaway lambs with the next two herds.

The herds we cross here, trail up through Fossil Butte and all the way up Dempsey Ridge until they hit their allotment on the forest. It's about 40 miles. Each herd has its own designated area to spend the summer. They spend the first 5 days of the trail in their camps. My mom moves each camp, 5 of them, every day, before she begins moving all of their stuff in their supply wagons for the next 2-5 days, depending on when they get to their allotment. Once on their allotment, they move into their canvas wall tents for the summer. 

During lambing and docking, the yearlings and dries (ewes without lambs) run together. On one of these days that we cross a herd, we must also run them through the corral to split them to go in their own separate herds for the summer. We have a herd that has younger lambs and finishes lambing later than the rest. This herd trails up sheep mountain later when they are ready. There is also the tailend bunch that is still finishing lambing during all of this. We will dock and haul them up to the mountains to mix in with another herd sometime in July. 

To get ready for the trail we have to move guys and their horses and dogs around to get set up for which herd they will be going with. This depends on which allotments the guys have been to before, we send them to areas they know. On the trail there are camps to move and pack outfits to haul out. In the midst of all the trailing there are still bum lambs to be fed every morning and night, groceries to gather and deliver, cows to check on and/or move, lambs to butcher, and meetings for different boards I am on that I must attend. There are a lot of moving parts, long days, and short nights to get all the sheep to the forest, but it’s well worth it.