First I want to say I appreciate all the kind comments. This very well could be the trip of a lifetime for me. There have been several questions regarding the llamas. The overall experience was great. They allowed us to access remote, steep country quietly with enough equipment to make a comfortable camp. Llamas only need water about every three days which was another advantage as the only water available was at the bottom of the basin. Llamas eat WHATEVER is around and although we carried llama chow because we had never been into that country, if you have grass around you can stake them at night for grazing and forget about the food. Each llama is good for about 80lbs or a little better when fresh. We had about 90lbs on the big black one going in. Now, you can work them down, and ours did get tired after we moved camp, packed out an overload of meat again 90lbs range each, and then going right back in the next day to get camp. With that said we packed way to heavy planning to be stranded in the wilderness for weeks I guess. We could have done a lot better on our planning end and conserved the animals a little better. On whole I do recommend the llamas highly for one seeking to stay light, mobile, and quiet, all very valuable characteristics of an elk hunter. They are about as carefree of a pack animal there is.
HD