Dear HCN,
Hey, Hal Walter, take a
geography class (HCN, 8/19/96). Juan Valdez lives in Colombia,
llamas don’t. Coffee grows in the tropical highlands, llamas haul
loads over high and arid Andean passes in the altiplano of Peru,
Bolivia and Chile – just a few thousand feet higher than your
12,000-foot Colorado mountain pass. And when you get that sorted
out you might want to take another look at the racist overtones of
your King of Spain donkey vs. South American peasant llama
comparisons.
As a commercial llama packer for 12
years, I can see easily through Mr. Walter’s disparaging comments
about llamas’ performance on the trail. Too bad he only met or only
chooses to write about what were clearly poorly trained and poorly
conditioned pack llamas.
Llamas, burros, horses
and mules are not interchangeable as pack animals. I choose to
liken them to pickups. Sometimes the task at hand requires a
one-ton flatbed (a Belgian mule perhaps?) and other times a compact
import (llama) will handle the load just fine. I can see a burro as
an extended cab Ford Ranger – you can pack them, then throw a
leg-weary youngster on top.
Any pack animal taken
into the wilderness, equine or camelid, can be handled with
environmental awareness, or not. That responsibility lies with the
two-legged handler. The bigger issue seems to be the apparent need
of some of these two-leggeds – whether they’re packing with horses,
mules, burros, llamas, or goats – to purport their choice as “the
best” at the expense of other species. Those comparisons are
odious. That goes as much for guys like Hal Walter who enjoy a
colorful put-down of llamas as “yuppie pets’ as for llama
aficionadas that oversell their woolly wonders as the ultimate pack
animal.
Thanks for the entertaining fiction. It’s
clear to me that Hal Walter is well matched with his allegiance to
the ass.
Stanlynn
Daugherty
Enterprise,
Oregon
Salmon,
Idaho
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Llamas are like compact cars.
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