Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Spit Happens


As I mentioned in Llama Llesson 09, it is rare for a healthy llama to spit at humans. In this sense, a "healthy" llama is one that has been in a herd of llamas and knows that humans are dominant over them and will not challenge, or spit at people. The Royal Ranch always has an exception to the rule!

We were above timberline on in the spectacular Lost Park area. Tom and I had just dropped of a group and we were scheduled to pick them up in a week. This is the really fun part of llama packing, when you have helped them accomplish their work, and have a beautiful hike down the mountain. Tom had Carbondale and Jasper and I was following up (as usual) with Hunter and Marcel, my lead llama. As I went to "piggy back" the llamas I accidentally tied Hunter's wool into the rope. He immediately started rapid fire spitting at me!!! I started yelping and madly trying to undo the offending knot. As you have probably heard, llama spit REALLY stinks! I'm yelling for Tom, and all I can hear is hysterical laughter. I don't think if he was covered in stinky high altitude tundra he would have thought it was so funny.

I was so terribly sorry for hurting one of my wondrous boys, but as soon as I got him out of his predicament he was fine, I, on the other hand had a three hour hike to endure smelling like cud! Today's pic is one of our hikes, you can see how much they enjoy that tundra! (Judy, Marcel, Hunter, Carbondale and Jasper)

1 comment:

Joe Holbrook said...

When I looked at this picture, I thought a couple of things. 1. How many people would envy your chance at such a beautiful view. 2. Most important thougt for me is do you have oxygen tank and mask on one of those llamas for me?