Training Log Archive: Lori

I'm "at" a virtual conference this week, so I've basically just been sitting on the couch with my foot up while staring at a computer. Sam won't even let me walk Presto, since I walked way too much on it the first 2 days, so I'm feeling incredibly lazy. It's still pretty purple, but the swelling has gone down significantly. It looks like a foot again, which is a relief, and now you can only tell there's swelling if you compare it to the other foot. Hopefully, it will be recovered in a few more days, and I'll be able to get outside for fun again!

C • Foot 8

Llama packing in the Hoover Wilderness with Sam, Tori, Carlo, Presto, Apachi, and Jethro! My foot was significantly better today, although still pretty painful, swollen, and turning a delightful color of purple. Apachi was also still improving, and we only had about 3.5 miles to go to get back to the trailhead, so we thought that perhaps we would survive this insanity.

Tori and I spent the morning grooming and saddling the llamas. This took longer than it should have because as soon as we had groomed Apachi, he lay back down in the dirt and started rolling on his back with all 4 feet in the air, so we had to do it a second time. In good news, Apachi was now only flopping over when Carlo got too close without announcing himself ahead of time. Apachi mostly just hummed angrily when he saw Carlo and sort of mournfully when he saw Sam, and otherwise seemed fairly normal(ish).

The llamas and I were actually starting to be friends. They were pretty happy to have me scratch their ears and head and neck and stuff, which was pretty cute. Oh, I forgot to mention, that every day we had to get bug repellent on the llamas, but we couldn't just spray it on because apparently the llamas think you are spitting on them when you spray them, so we had to sort of rub it on their ears, which they HATED. I'd have to hold them still while Sam sort of darted in and rubbed their ears with bug repellent. Anyway, finally on the last day, they seemed happy to have their ears scratched, which I choose to believe was because they were starting to like me, but I fear may actually just be because they had so many mosquito bites...

Ok, so today, we made Apachi carry his panniers completely empty, which meant that Jethro had some room in his panniers for non-llama-related stuff. So Jethro took all of my stuff and a few things of other people's, and I carried my empty backpack, which meant that everyone except Presto was carrying an appropriate number of backpacks, so we at least looked less ridiculous. Carlo still went in front, followed by me with Presto and the backpack because while walking was a bit easier today, I still didn't feel quite up to jumping out of the way if the llamas did something stupid and/or unexpected. Then Sam leading Jethro, who was leading Apachi. And Tori watching Apachi to make sure he didn't do anything absurd.

Things were going ok for the first 10 minutes or so. But then a deer ran past and Apachi freaked out. Let me emphasize that we are talking about a DEER. Another herbivore, very similar to Apachi but much smaller... Apachi flopped into Jethro, who fell into Sam, and squished Sam into a tree. Luckily Sam was just a bit scratched up, but Apachi was freaking out with lots of angry, angry humming. We tied the llamas up in the hopes that Apachi would calm down, but he just spent the next 20 minutes angrily pacing and humming and pacing and humming and angrily eating pine trees while pacing and humming, while Jethro kind of watched him in an, why-are-you-so-crazy sort of way. Eventually we decided Apachi was as calm as we were going to get him, and hooked everyone back up. Apachi spent the entire 2 hour hike back to the trailhead humming grumpily, but managed not to flop over at all. He didn't even totally freak out when some horses came by. So success??

We got back to the trailhead about an hour before the llama people were supposed to pick up the llamas (and about 2 hours before the llama people actually picked up the llamas). We tied them up in a spot with some grass and some tasty pine needles. Apachi munched angrily with lots of grumpy humming and Jethro munched in a more sane sort of way. We were just happy to have everyone make it back to the trailhead more or less in one piece. After the llamas were picked up, we went for a quick dip in the river, and then started the drive back to the Bay Area.

I can't say I recommend llama packing (in fact, I will actually say: DEFINITELY DO NOT GO LLAMA PACKING WITHOUT A GUIDE WHO ACTUALLY KNOWS WHAT TO DO WITH LLAMAS), but it was a truly different sort of experience, and definitely a good way to get away from the world for a few days. Also, it was awesome to spend some time with Tori and Carlo in person! Fun, fun (?)!

Llama packing with Sam, Tori, Carlo, Presto, Apachi, and Jethro in the Hoover Wilderness! We taped the carabiners shut tonight and awoke in the morning to find 2 attached llamas (phew!). Since Apachi is scared of men, Tori and I spent the morning grooming and saddling the llamas. Apachi was still flopping on the ground whenever Carlo (who is apparently especially terrifying got too close), but seemed moderately capable of walking, which was a relief. We decided that Apachi shouldn't carry anything other than his saddle, so we put Apachi's panniers inside Jethro's panniers and mostly just had Jethro carrying llama stuff while we mostly carried our own stuff. (Sort of defeats the pack part of having a pack llama, but oh well.)

Carlo, Sam, and Presto went way out in front to keep from freaking Apachi out. Tori lead Jethro, and I followed with Apachi. We were pretty worried about getting the llamas down the steep hill from Fremont Lake to the river, but that actually went pretty well, shockingly enough. We just had a minor mishap when we discovered that I hadn't put the saddles on quite correctly and Jethro's saddle started sliding forward. Luckily Jethro is a fairly competent llama and just sat down in the trail when his pack started acting funny, so we were able to fix it before it became a real problem. Otherwise, everything went pretty well and Apachi made it down the mountain without flopping over, which we were all pretty happy about.

We decided to do the river crossing similarly to the first day. We got all of the packs and Presto across the river, and then Tori and I came back for the llamas. Tori took Jethro across the river first with no problems. I came after with Apachi. Partway across, Apachi freaked out (I guess?) and lurched into me, stepping on my foot. OUCH!!!! Between the claw and the fact that llamas are HEAVY, it hurt A LOT. Sam quickly came out and took Apachi the rest of the way across the river and Carlo got me out of the river. It was amazingly painful, and I was initially worried that something might be broken, but after sitting on the bank of the river and soaking it in the snow melt for a while, it became clear that while it was quite bruised it was highly unlikely to be broken. I painfully slipped my shoe on and got ready to go.

We were now a truly ridiculous group. I could no longer carry my pack because my foot wasn't entirely functional, so we loaded as much of my stuff as possible into Jethro's packs and then Carlo took my backpack to wear on his front. So, Carlo came first, wearing 2 backpacks. Then I limped along behind him with Presto tied around my waist using Sam's hiking poles to help support my weight off of my right foot. Then Sam lead Jethro (who was wearing his panniers) who was leading Apachi (who was not carrying anything). And then Tori was in the back making sure that nothing went terribly wrong if Apachi suddenly flopped over.

As absurd as this all sounded, we did successfully make it to Roosevelt lake, which was our new goal for the day. Sam and Tori scouted out a campsite with llama forage while Carlo rested after carrying WAYYYYYY too much stuff and I tried to keep my swollen and bruised foot elevated. We eventually found a campsite, set up camp, filtered water, fed the llamas, and had dinner.

C • Llamas! 6

Hiking with Sam and Presto in the Hoover Wilderness! The llama people had sort of warned us that the llamas might try to escape the stake-out line, so we'd attached them with locking carabiners. Ha. Apparently llamas are too sneaky for carabiners. Somehow Jethro had managed to unlock the locking carabiner and was just roaming around munching on grass. Luckily Apachi was still tied up and llamas are social creatures, so Jethro hadn't really gone anywhere. Sam gathered Jethro back up, and we were just thinking that everything was fine when we discovered that Apachi was having trouble standing up. Ack!

We had absolutely no idea what was wrong with him. He would sort of try to stand up and then his front legs would buckle. Did we injure him? Did he injure himself in the night? Was he just sore? Did he eat something and was he high/drunk? WE HAD NO IDEA!!!!

We eventually decided that perhaps he had eaten something poisonous (or at least that was the only thing we could do anything about) and fed him some activated charcoal with his morning grain. We obviously could not continue on our planned itinerary up to Sister Lakes, so we decided to split up into pairs for day hikes. Sam, Presto, and I went out first. We made it to Lower Long Lake (about halfway to our original planned campsite for night 2) before having lunch and then turning around for our afternoon of llama-watching. The hike was pretty nice with some tantalizing views of the mountains we were supposed to be sleeping in.

During our afternoon of llama watching, Sam did a lot of gathering water, while I watched the llamas. We discovered that Apachi does not like men, and was much more likely to flop over when Sam was around than when it was just me. Apachi also seemed to be doing a bit better, so we were a lot less worried about him. This was especially good because we were going to have to start heading back to Leavitt Meadows tomorrow one way or another if we were going to make it back by Sunday to meet the llama people. Eep!

Stretching while watching llamas.

Llama packing with Sam, Tori, Carlo, Presto, Apachi, and Jethro in the Hoover Wilderness! We've been wanting to try llama packing since we discovered it was a thing, but we've never been able to quite get everything together for it. It seemed like it might actually happen this year and then there was a pandemic and it seemed like it might not happen, but in the end we reduced the number of people on the trip and the CA rules about hanging out with people outside changed and we decided to go ahead with it. It seems a bit odd that people just rent you their animals to go out into the backcountry, but apparently this is a thing, so we figured it would be ok.

The llama people told us to meet them at the trailhead at 10am where they would deposit the llamas and we would be on our way, so we got up crazy early in the morning to get to Leavitt Meadows by 10am. 10am came and went with no llamas. Then 11am... We were deciding how long to wait before just going out on a trip sans llamas when the 15 passenger van filled with llamas showed up! Awesome! Apachi and Jethro the llamas got out, we filled their panniers and headed off.

Llamas hum (or groan or moan or something) when they are displeased and Apachi was all about the humming. He also was not particularly about the walking, so we had a bit of a struggle getting started. Eventually we realized that everything went much better with Jethro in front, so we switched the llamas and then the only issue was keeping Apachi from pushing Carlo off the trail in Apachi's attempt to get closer to Jethro. We made it to Roosevelt Lake where we stopped for lunch and the llamas stopped for a munch. After lunch we decided to try linking Apachi and Jethro together for a while, and this worked MUCH better, which was great.

Our plan was go to 8 miles today to Fremont Lake, which seemed like a very doable sort of hike. Sadly, it did not seem like the llamas were entirely on board with this, but there weren't a lot of other potential campsites, so they got a bit more of a workout then I think they would have liked. Apachi was sort of panting on some of the steeper uphills... We were super worried about the river crossing, but that actually went remarkably smoothly, and then we just had the final climb up to Fremont Lake. Both llamas were complaining a bit on the climb, but we eventually made it (WAYYYYY later than we'd planned...llamas are slow...). We found a campsite, set the llamas up with some grass and grain, filtered water, made dinner, and then set the llamas up for the night.