Week in Yellowstone with Llamas

Charu,


Thank you for another great trip with your llamas. We had a great time and the girls were able to walk the trip just fine.

We returned late on Saturday evening so I didn’t bother waking you. The packs and tethers were left on the west side of your temple. The lead ropes were put on the fence into the llama pen with the haystack. The five llamas were put in the pen with the hay. Everything should be there and in the same shape that it was taken. We had no problems with the packs.

Llama Feedback


Rama was our lead llama. He still tends to jump a little more than the others over small streams or marshy areas. He would on occasion stop for a few seconds at certain points on the trail when he either smelled something or caught a glimpse of something through the trees. It didn’t happen a lot and when it did after a second or two he would move on. He could be led away from the other llamas with no problem.

Shiva seemed young and inexperienced. It was particularly evident the first day of our trip. After about four miles he would walk about 100 yards then stop. It would take some coaxing to get him going again. At first we figured there was something wrong with his pack. We unpacked and repacked his load but it didn’t change things. He probably stopped fifty to sixty times during the last 3 miles of the first day. Maybe he was just tired, his load was not the heaviest nor the lightest. As the week progressed he became better with less stops. On the last day we did ten miles in which he may have only stopped a half a dozen times. Shiva was also a little touchy when putting on the pack saddle. A couple of us were kicked by him when putting on the pack saddle.

Jagannatha was great. No problems, a great packer and good with everyone. His trademark was to get his tether rope the most tangled up each night.

Casper was good. He has improved a lot from the trip we had him on last year. He does like to sit down in the trail in real dusty spots. We learned to not stop on wide dusty spots in the trail and he was fine. He is not too far behind Jagannatha in his performance.

Pride was consistent and steady. Not a leader, as you know he generally had to be the last one in the group. Otherwise he was always stopping and looking back for any llama that was behind him. Other than that he was great.

Thanks again. Mike