Sunday, Aug 9 - Lander, WY, Llama Training, Worthen Meadows

We awoke dry (yes, no rain!), and the sun shining on the horizon. But again, there were the threatening skies telling us not to dawdle too long on breakfast or breaking camp, and we accomplished both just in time as the rain hit (OK, we tore down before the rain, and ate breakfast in a light rain). At one point we decided to kick our packing into high gear, a neighbor camper (a gruff Sturgis biker) came by and asked Michael how long we had been together. He was surprised to see us 8 organize our gear, cars and the crew trailer with extreme efficiency, and how the scouts were even more involved than the adults. When Michael told him “About a year”, the guy replied, “A year? Man, you guys know how to get sh** done!” Truthfully, the Stampfle clan (father, son, daughter on the trip, mother back in the Twin Cities) were masters at meal planning, meal content packing, and trailer packing and organizing. It was a treat to watch them at work, especially when the heat was on (i.e., rain coming). Most times I felt I was just in the way, even though the rest of us are quite organized ourselves. But I do agree with that biker – we were an awesome team, and the scouts get all the credit.

We hit the road in what looked like an all-day rain, and we debated the best/fastest routes to get to Lander, WY for our meeting with the llama outfitter and our llama training later that afternoon. Some routes were shorter, some more scenic, but we decided that taking the interstate to Buffalo then down to Casper, then west to Shoshoni, Riverton, then Lander was better than the mountainous route through the Bighorn Mountains. Besides, what good is scenery if it's raining? Well the rain broke by Buffalo, and we had clear sailing for the rest of the day. We arrived in Lander at 3 pm, and hour before we were to meet the llama outfitter, so we did some supply shopping, had an ice cream treat, then headed to the outskirts of town to Lander Llama Outfitters.

We met Max our trainer, who introduced us to our 3 llamas for the trip: America (oldest, strongest, studliest), Sheep (middle aged, very docile), and Paintbrush (youngest, most excitable). We learned how to approach and lead the llamas, but most importantly we learned how to saddle the llamas. Each llama can hold 70 lbs of gear total: 30 lbs in each side bag (called a pannier), and 10 lbs of lighter stuff on top of the saddle. The saddle had to be extremely tight and secure up front to prevent rubbing and chaffing. After we all got practice, we sat down to do a little map review with Max on our proposed route. Gary was still undecided on how to approach our route. The loop we had planned could be traversed clockwise or counter clockwise. Gary’s plan all along had been to traverse it counter clockwise, but the owner said it would be better to traverse it clockwise and thus avoid a major uphill grind on our 2nd day. Max was non-committal, saying either way could be done, but that the uphill climb in question was a big deal. In the end we decided to follow the owner’s advice. The problem we faced is that our original plan offered what seemed like the most reasonable length of hiking each day (5-7 miles each day). For us to accomplish this new plan, we would be faced with a 9 or 10-mile hike our first day. Could we do it? We decided to try.

We left Llander Llama (5,500 ft) and headed up the mountains to Worthen Meadows Reservoir and campgrounds (9200 ft). We nabbed two sites next to each other, not far from (but not in sight of) the water. We all set up camp, and I went off to the lake to bathe, some went to wash hair, some prepared dinner (guess who? Yep, the Stampfle's!), and some (OK, "Gear Daddy" Johnson) had mounds of gear that had to be distilled down into a more manageable packing assortment for the 5 days and 4 nights backpacking ahead of us. To his credit, Gary brings lots of extra gear in case other hikers need items - everything from walking poles to compression sacks. After dinner of foil dinners (and desert of dutch oven peach cobbler – yum!), we had our first campfire! Michael and I had been playing guitar before and after dinner, and with the scouts being more accustomed to our singing and sense of humor, it was time to sing and dance to two Gary Johnson gems – “Dem Bones”, and “Father Abraham”, both requiring active body movements and gyrations! You can’t spring this stuff on a new group of scouts/adults, but we knew each other pretty well by then, and I think the scouts knew how goofy us adults could be. Yeehaw, we had a great campfire that night!


Llama Training, Lander, WY photos - click for more