On February 25th, the website Go Hunt ran a story by outfitter Beau Baty entitled Why Pack Llamas for Your Next Hunt?. It included some great photos of Beau’s athletic packers, as well as descriptions of some of his more strenuous trips. At the end of June, Daniel Xu’s article, Are Pack Llamas the Next Big Trend for Hunting?, was posted on a website called OUTDOORHUB. The article seems to be a poor copy of Beau’s article, and contains several glaring inaccuracies about llama packing, including what I assume was a typo about llamas being able to carry 400 pounds, a claim that llamas can go days without water and can self-regulate their temperature, a mention about there being only 1,500 Ccara llamas in the United States and an implication that Ccara llamas are the only ones capable of packing.
The first article was noticed and commented on in the Yahoo! Groups’ Llamapacking forum in July, although it seemed that some of the comments referred to the second article’s content more than the first. (If you’re not already a member of the Yahoo! Groups Llamapacking listserve, I’d recommend joining it.) The discussion quickly zeroed in on the definition of a Ccara/Classic/registered llama, and many differing opinions were voiced.
I am a complete neophyte to the world of official standards and registries, having witnessed only one NACA screening myself, so I will not offer my opinion on that topic. But I would like to say one thing: if you are looking for a pack animal to give you wider access to our country’s fantastic public lands, please make sure you educate yourself before you buy. The feature story in the spring issue of The Backcountry Llama was about camels and the second was about yaks. This issue has a story about goat packing, and the winter issue will have a story about reindeer packing. We all know that horses, mules, and donkeys are the most common pack animals on the trail today. And, of course, there are llamas.
I have been packing with llamas since I was a toddler, and every summer we had a new group of green llamas to train for the trail. Some llamas can pack, others can’t. (That goes for all animals, including humans.) Some llamas can pack well enough to get a family of four to a nice fishing lake three miles from the trailhead, others can get a hunter through miles of snow and then pack out a serious load of meat.
Understand that every llama, like every hiker, is different. Conditioning, confirmation, personality, and heart are all factors in the animal’s potential, and distance, terrain, elevation, and weather all directly affect that potential.
Do your research, check out the Pack Llama Trail Association and the North American Ccara Association, read every book and article with a critical eye (especially those online), and, most importantly, get out on the trail with as many different llamas as possible before you make a purchase. Go on a few commercial trips with outfitters, then graduate to leasing animals for your trips. Know the parameters of your usual trip (be realistic about the kind of trips you will ultimately be taking with your llamas) and spend enough time on the trail with enough different animals to know what they are capable of and what is unrealistic.
There are many great resources out there, so many more than there were when my family began packing with llamas in the eighties, so take advantage of all that knowledge. If you get the opportunity to trail-test an animal before you buy, do so. There’s no substitute for first-hand experience.
Finally, if you’re a serious hiker looking for a serious pack llama, talk to the handful of breeders out there who have a roster of tested packers. These people are usually (but not always) outfitters who require their animals to perform at a high level all season long, who keep them in shape over the off-season, and whose breeding program is designed to produce proven pack stock. As with anything, you get what you pay for. If a serious pack animal is what you need and want, be prepared to pay for it.