It's Training Season (finally)

[Zackcarp]

Squirrel, whats the average weight you run on your experienced packers? We've gotten a hand full of llamas this year and the training has been a blast.

 

[squirrel]

Squirrel, whats the average weight you run on your experienced packers? We've gotten a hand full of llamas this year and the training has been a blast.

A very difficult question to answer with specificity. Variables are

difficulty of trail or lack thereof

Miles covered

pounds of payload

As one or more get harder then the others must adjust downward, it is a balancing act and the wild card is how good of a llama do you have.

With that as set up my best llamas can easily handle 60 # loads for long days in difficult terrain... "long" and "difficult" are very subjective even in this cop out position. You ALWAYS want to err on the side of not abusing your animals. MANY guys will never understand this, and should never own or rent an animal, but they do.

I once fielded a call from an idiot who had emptied all the other llamas and put 160# on Leo just to prove what a great packer he was. this individual is now blackballed BTW here at corral creek llamas. I mean who would do such a thing for such a trivial point to be made, yet he did just that.

My summer training runs are always heavy on #'s of llamas and light on poundage with lots of miles assuming I have the time. Just got back from an 8-1/2 mile 3000' climb overnighter. My youngest trainee had the heaviest load at maybe 35#, my leader went virtually empty for the 17 mile round trip to go look at elk.

this is pretty much my standard summer run, light loads one night stays, lots of miles and vertical. My youngest did well until about mile #7, he's just 3 so that's OK.

 

[Paul M]

I did a training run this weekend with 3 of the boys on a pretty tough trail in Mammoth CA
they did great ( i was sucking wind going over the pass)

 

[Zackcarp]

Here's the view from our training hike yesterday. 1000 ft climb and 4 miles in 2 hours with 40lbs each. Only had one protester in the first mile. Moved him to the middle and solved the protests.

 

[bisblue]

Our first trip of the season a little while back, they did pretty good.

 

[squirrel]

Took a really pretty one of about 21 miles, with a ton of vertical. Colder than shit, needed gloves yesterday am. Youngest laid down a few times he seems to hit a wall at about the 6-7 mile mark. He's carrying about 35-40, pretty heavy for a baby, but he's about the biggest 3 yr old Ive ever trained up. 3rd day I gave him lighter panniers since he was being such a puss. Of course I was hitting the pill bottle and I had nothing at all on my back!

 

[Rockchuck]

Been having some trouble with a couple younger males and water crossings on training hikes so we went and had a creek day where they had no option to jump it. They seemed to respond well after some time hiking the creek. Now we need to see if it translates well back on the trail with smaller water crossings. Gotta keep racking up the miles!

 

[burrohiker]

Thankful for the summer monsoons but its kept us out of the backcountry lately so a lot of local conditioning hikes after work or early in the morning on Saturdays. This weekend we'll head up to the south san juans. Most the racing crew was in Leadville over the weekend.

Highlight of the summer so far has been working with this 3 year old mini donkey. She doesn't carry much but she is so much fun, and the pictures are ridiculously adorable.

Trained the brown BLM burro last summer from the TIP program. Put a ton of miles on him last year and he excelled, but this year haven't gotten him out as much and he needs some work. The third photo is him and I on Sunday getting in some bro time, and rehashing some training points.

 

[Zackcarp]

Burrohiker, its hard to tell with your pics, but do you shoe your donks?

 

[Zackcarp]

I added a 3 year old to our string for a day hike. I was curious how he would handle our creek crossing, but after watching the big boys pass thru, he did just fine.

 

[burrohiker]

Burrohiker, its hard to tell with your pics, but do you shoe your donks?

I just started putting fronts on one of mine this year for racing. She's got white hooves and they just can't take the miles of training plus rocky terrain. I've done easy boots, which get you by, but you loose some agility/responsiveness.

The rest of them have really solid hard feet.

 

[burrohiker]

Pretty darn cool little shoes!

 

[Old and gray]

I’d remove that heel nail.

 

[burrohiker]

I’d remove that heel nail.

Why is that?

Our farrier is a two time world champion blacksmith so I trust him pretty well

 

[Old and gray]

Well then he’s pretty handy doing forge work. The last nail is likely unnecessary on a shoe that size. No nails should go past the widest part of the hoof, even on a donkey.

 

[squirrel]

Thankful for the summer monsoons but its kept us out of the backcountry lately so a lot of local conditioning hikes after work or early in the morning on Saturdays. This weekend we'll head up to the south san juans. Most the racing crew was in Leadville over the weekend.

Highlight of the summer so far has been working with this 3 year old mini donkey. She doesn't carry much but she is so much fun, and the pictures are ridiculously adorable.

Trained the brown BLM burro last summer from the TIP program. Put a ton of miles on him last year and he excelled, but this year haven't gotten him out as much and he needs some work. The third photo is him and I on Sunday getting in some bro time, and rehashing some training points.


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I went to Fairplay for supplying llamas to the llamarama/burro days thing and got to pet some burros. Soft ears but man do they bite hard when you aren't looking! And they didn't like my dogs not one little bit... Sent pics home to the wife and said I was loading a couple up, yeh that didn't go well. She misses additions to the woolies as they just blend in with the herd, she has let me know that additions of goats or donks would be noticeable, even to her untrained eye.

 

[squirrel]

This week's trip, summer is winding down. Late season flowers are dominant.

 

[Paul M]

wow looks amazing
and i would like to have some of that grass

 

[burrohiker]

View attachment 438578This week's trip, summer is winding down. Late season flowers are dominant.

Awesome trip squirrel! I saw similar this weekend- Alpine grass just starting to turn brown/mature and the last of the summer flowers holding on. Finally drying out enough to get across some boggy areas.

We had a gorgeous weekend out in the South San Juan's. Did about 7miles in on Friday and out on Sunday. Found a few elk, but the nuclear sun at 12k, plus a full moon kept the critters mostly in the shade.