By Derry Walsh
From the Fall 1998 issue
The FVLAC newsletter (Summer 1998) mentioned an overnight hike with llamas in Manning Park July 20 - 22. I thought that might be quite nice — Bill and I like the outdoors but lately, apart from spending our days outdoors on our little plot, we just don’t seem to go anywhere . . . Hmmmmmmmm . . . how do we go about this? First, contact Marie Seabrook.
Once a week for four weeks, Marie, Duanne van den Berg and Allison, Brian and Jane Pinkerton, Dick and Flo McGill, Dennis Cooney, David Gendron and (girlfriend) Adele Jones, and Bill and Derry gathered in the furthest parking lot in Golden Ears Park en route to Gold Creek. Not everyone was there every week, but each person had a llama and usually Marie had a few extra llamas as part of a Golden Ears Llamas training session.
A training trip up gold creek in Golden Ears Park.
Each session was a learning session. Bill and I took our two Silver Bullet boys: Silver Spitfire (aged 3) and Silver Hurricane (aged 2). Marie showed us all sorts of backpacks for llamas, panniers, and rigs. She showed us how to weigh and pack panniers, how to behave on the trail, how to make our llamas behave on the trail, and what to watch out for (horses and dogs).
The weather was great, not too hot and rain was threatened, but didn’t arrive. It is a pleasant two-hour walk up an access road to Gold Creek where we stopped for lunch and then walked back (1.5 hours). More show-and-tell sessions by Marie during the lunch break.
Over the next four weeks, Bill made two sawbuck packs for the llamas. I ordered the panniers and we acquired all sorts of bits and pieces for packing as recommended by Marie.
On July 20, we assembled in the Monument 78 parking lot at Manning Park at 10 am . . . well, our leader and friend, Marie and Duanne, were late. The adventurers were Brian and Jane Pinkerton, Janet Boyhan, Dick and Flo McGill, Bill and myself: nine people and ten llamas.
Janet is from Everson, Washington, and is a very experienced packer with llamas. She and her husband, Tom, make major treks each year with their llamas and we learned a lot from her.
Apart from waiting for Marie and Duanne, it took us about an hour to get the llamas packed up. It was a lovely day, sunny with clear sky, warm but not too hot, slight breeze. Off we went to the US border along the Castle Creek/Monument 78 trail. Soon after we started, we crossed a Bailey bridge across the Similkameen river — no problem for the llamas — then the trail follows an old access road east of Windy Joe Mountain for most of the way to the border.
It was a beautiful warm day as we hiked through the daisies on our way to camp.
We were actually ready for lunch when we started hiking, but Marie put us off until we were well along on the trail and when we did stop, we were alongside a meadow of white daisies — quite spectacular. After about four hours, we arrived at the border campsite which is alongside Castle Creek and includes a corral — ideal for the llamas. There is a new footbridge across the creek about ten feet above the water — ideal for hanging our food from bears. Clean out-houses make the site perfect. Set up camp and Marie decided to wash and change and let her old shirt stream in the current to get clean.
After his lunch break in the daisies, Pizarro is ready to continue on to the border which was another five or six miles.
Next we watered the llamas in the creek which, of course, meant they
all peed and crapped and we had pellets floating downstream . . .
Marie’s shirt? “Not to worry”, she said, “The current will take everything downstream”.
Puttered around and cooked our various instant dinners and checked
out everyone’s camping/packing equipment. Derry and Bill were using clear plastic cutlery which has one serious disadvantage: because it is clear, you can’t see it on the wooden benches or anywhere. (First thing I did when I got home was to spray paint the handles pink!) Another problem with learning to pack is that everything you have is in one of four panniers and you always find the item in the last pannier you check. Marie showed us her compact cooking unit. Other campers tell us of seeing a bear on two occasions in the last two days near this campsite, so we hung our food from the bridge — saved us flinging rocks over high branches.
Llamas spitting a bit in the corral as they establish their hierarchy.
Went to bed early and soon after we were asleep, we were wakened by a huge earth-shaking BOOM! The dog barked, the llamas were silent. What on earth was that? A sonic boom? An avalanche? Mount St. Helen’s exploding again? Well, we’ll find out in the morning.
Day 2. We rule out a sonic boom because the air force would not be flying at 9:40 pm. We rule out an avalanche, because we heard no gravel/rocks sliding after the boom. It could have been Mount St. Helen’s. It could have been an earthquake.*
After breakfast which was highlighted by Dick McGill tipping backwards off his camp chair, but not spilling a drop of his coffee; Derry accused Bill of eating all of the trail mix (he didn’t, but during the night, the squirrels or mice did eat all of the Trail mix by dropping down the drawstring which held the duffel bag tied to the bridge and tearing through the plastic bag and eating to their hearts content; they had the bad manners to discard all the shells and skins into the duffel bag).
We puttered around, visited the Monument 78 (the actual monument lifts off its base and there’s a book inside to sign and make comments), took photos, and allowed the llamas to graze amidst the wildflowers.
The whole group gathered for a photo at Monument 78, the cleared border line is visible in the background. Notice that all of the llamas are on the Canadian side of the border
After coffee, Brian and Jane set off southwards along the Pacific Crest trail into Washington (no llamas) to assess the trail for their trip in August. Derry and Bill set off heading north along the Pacific Crest trail (no llamas). The others spent the day in camp and the llamas spent the day in the corral. Back to camp for suppertime and Jane arrives with her face bashed up — black eyes, cut nose and scrapes on her knees and hands. Has she met a bear? What did Brian do to her? It seems she tripped on a branch sticking up on the trail and fell forwards off the trail onto a big rock. Boy, does she look battered! Bandaids and antiseptics and rest. Brian demonstrated how one should be able to boil water in a brown paper bag — didn’t work — Tim Horton’s bag — must bring a McDonald brown bag next time — he nearly put the fire out!
After a good night’s sleep, if you can call sleeping on a 3/4" foamie comfortable, we packed and headed back down to Hwy 3. Marie collected her shirt from the creek and she had a pocketful of pellets — so much for the current.
As we crossed the Bailey bridge near the parking lot, the llamas were a bit spooky and ours didn’t want to cross the bridge. At the leading edge of the bridge there was a big hole in the middle with a big log sticking out of the hole. We didn’t remember seeing that on the way up, but then we weren’t looking at the bridge from this end. Hmmmmm.
Flo McGill and Jane Pinkerton lead the group on the trip back to the parking lot.
Back to our trucks and Marie has a big gasoline stain under her truck — she has a hole in her gas tank. Brian looked under the tank and there is a hole there in the shape of a Phillips screwdriver bit! Someone has punctured her tank and taken the gas, meanwhile spilling a lot onto the ground.
A couple of hikers arrived back at the parking lot just as we did and they have duct tape, so Brian patched the hole with duct tape and Brian and Jane and Janet set off to get a jerry can of gas and a self-threading screw with a gasket. Took at least an hour meanwhile Bill found a suitable screw in our truck and took off the duct tape and put in the screw. Derry, ever stingy, and not wanting to waste the duct tape in case we would need it again before we were finished, stuck the tape to her thighs in the interim. Thus the photos of Derry with strips of duct tape on her thighs!! Brian arrived with a better sized screw; Bill put the new screw and gasket in the hole in the tank and a few of the used strips of duct tape on top and off we set for home.
It was a good trip and I’m certainly convinced that camping with llamas is the way to go. You walk a little slower and there are more potty stops, especially with ten llamas, but I only had my camera to carry. Our two llamas carried 90 lbs between them.
*(Brian used the Internet to find out that there was an earthquake at 9:41 pm on July 20, 2.2 Richter, ten miles underground, 69 miles southeast of Hope. That was almost exactly where we were sleeping).
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