Bighorn sheep count - Adventures as a Wilderness Guide
On Tuesday we left in the morning to the Trailhead to go to Camp, I’d be a mentor guide on a wilderness experience with Wilderness Trails where we’d be looking for California Bighorn sheep. Our yearly population counts provide great insights into population numbers and helps us to shape our conservation efforts. I was really excited about the next two weeks.
On the way to Camp I rode Billy. He is a really tall horse, calm and reliable. The weather was wonderful, the sun was shining and the sky was blue. After about two hours we arrived at Camp. It is a beautiful, big cabin. I was surprised about that. Others might only see the rustic cabin, but when you spend lots of time in the bush, this cabin looked like a five star cabin to me. The cabin has a big living room with a large wood stove. When you go up stairs there are four rooms to sleep in. I had a whole room for myself. The first few days we hobbled the horses, but later we took all the hobbles off and let them roam free. We just put bells on them so that we can hear them. The first few days they were close to the cabin. But in the second week they went further away and it was hard to find them. So we decided to stake the horses we needed for the day trips.
On the day we arrived, I stayed at the cabin while the rest of the group rode to the lookout to glass for Bighorn sheep. Three hours later they came back and I already prepared supper. We ate chili this evening. The next day we rode all together to the same lookout and glassed for sheep. The weather was wonderful. The sun was shining and the sky was blue. Next, we rode further up the mountain to see if the sheep were still there. But there was nothing. No tracks, no sheep, no nothing. So we rode back to camp and ate another good supper.
On Thursday we rode to the other lookout on the other side where the volcano was. Normally the female sheep gather there. We were glassing for a few hours, but didn’t see anything. I was laying on the ground and Dale told me I will get a sunburn for the sun was shining really hot, so I took precautions. On Friday we went to the other lookout again. The weather was still beautiful, nice and warm. But sadly we didn’t see any sheep. We saw some tracks but no sheep. On Saturday the weather changed and it was snowing and really foggy. It was really cold and the view was not good so we couldn’t see tracks or sheep. The same for the next two days.
Then, we saw the ewes and lambs in the meadow just behind the cabin. We saw around twenty sheep. That was really nice and encouraging. We recorded our sightings an took pictures from the distance. We kept looking for more sheep, so we rode to the lookout again. Suddenly I heard one of the guest say ram, he saw three rams on the other side of the valley. After his description I could also see them through my binoculars. Two of the rams were really young and the other one was a bit older, we could tell by the curl of their horns.
After this successful day we rode back to camp. At camp Dale and I wanted to bring more wood to the cabin with the sleigh. We put a rope on the sleigh and carried it to the wood. We loaded the sleigh with the wood and hung on to the rope to pull the sleigh. After a few minutes we decided to get a horse and let the horse pull the sleigh. That was so much easier. After a good supper we went to bed.
On Saturday we rode again to the lookout to find more sheep, where we again found the three rams we’d seen earlier. The weather was really cold and foggy so we couldn’t see very well. After a few hours of glassing and scouting we went back to the cabin. In the afternoon we packed all the horses and walked back to the trailhead. After about two hours we arrived at the trailhead with the horses. We loaded the trailer with the first four horses, saddles and other things. Hungry and tired, but excited with our sheep sightings we arrived at the ranch. It was a really nice wilderness experience and I enjoyed being outside in the mountains and riding the horses. We had a really good community and lots of fun at camp. It was a nice and new opportunity for me to experience a transformation and I learned a lot of new things. Thanks for this adventure.
Jael, Switzerland
