Scott how many years you've been doing this I think I'm going on 35.
35 years of llama experience that ages me no I'm I'm at the point in life where I realize that
a little bit of seasoning is good but yeah this is our saddle it's a it's like a Colorado pivot pack
only in my own design and it's a solid aluminum we've got four bars here with an attached pad
pad looks like this it's like a sheepskin here and these here have a cushion underneath it some
neoprene cushion and this is where the spine is llamas have protruding spine a little bit you
want to protect that so you have a front and back your cinches are on the far side the name of the
llama is here is Tommy or Tom and you're going to always load your llama from the left hand side on
our saddle system this is the webbing on the other side we're going to attach and these here are your
top loading straps so what I'm going to do first is I'm gonna just just check the llama I'm gonna feel
right in here for any big pine cones or rocks or sticks like that and he doesn't but they're all
it just rained and he's got a lot of picked up a duff or hay duff so I'm just going to kind of wipe
it off make sure there's nothing big in there and then I'm gonna drape these over like this
and drop them make sure your bars are covered not looped like that or curled up
gonna go right in here I'm gonna position it right here I'm gonna come over here and so I'm
going to take the front cinch right here I'm going to grab that one cinch like this okay and for our
system here's your here's your breastplate it's a solid bone plate right here you're gonna do about
three three fingers out and that cinch is going to go right in here so I'm gonna grab that and
it's just like a horse saddle a Latigo Style knot you're gonna go through once you're gonna go up
to the top here just like a saddle on a horse if you've done it if not it's pretty easy now before
I tighten it up I'm gonna get it in position I think I want to go right about right there
worry about three inches or three fingers right from the armpit you don't want it in the armpit
you want it out just a tad I'm going to put my hand behind that I'm gonna do one last look
it's square here from neck to tail down here I'm gonna pull my hand out what you want to do on
our saddle system is you want this front cinch as tight as you can get it if you don't get it
as tight it could slip and move and like with any system you should have it tight go as tight as you
can get it I'm gonna go a little more that's as tight as I can get it I'm going to keep pressure
I'm going to use my tip I'm going to go through the O-ring just like a saddle on a horse
or a llama you're gonna go around like this
stick that tip through and there's my knot got a little bit of slack
you really shouldn't have anything dangling on any saddle system that
irritates them so I'm just going to pull a loop upwards like that and uh
like just like that and that's good and that's going to fold down with your panniers go on top
the rear cinch on on our system the knot is exactly the same I'm not
going to position anything yet until I run the webbing all the way through
I'm going to go all the way through line it up line your webbing up so it's not twisted
now on the rear cinch if you look right here is the beginning of the penis sheath and then
there's all llamas have a line of wool and then bare skin it's going to split the difference
I'm going to go right about there it's kind of angled unless you got to start tightening it up
right about like that now you don't want it as tight as you can get it because that's where their
diaphragm is and if you take a look it's kind of concave right there like that kind of a concave
I'm going to go up a little bit more and uh that's about as tight as you want it on this and uh so
I'm gonna tie my knot off there we go and that's your saddle that's your done deal you want to come
around and take a look make sure everything's okay because sometimes people monkey around with it and
I'm just going to tighten that up a little bit this definitely needs to be tightened up
I'm going to look here to make sure that that this stuff is not twisted or you
don't cross them over crossing over is not going to work it's nice and solid real tight
you can move the whole the whole body like that he's ready to load the panniers
next step general deer hunt I am in the process of driving to my deer area I just picked up my llamas
so if you are planning to hunt western Wyoming and you are thinking at all about using llamas
I would highly recommend Lander Llama Company um Scott Woodruff does and a great
job with his llamas it is just it's a lot of fun to use them they're well trained they're
well taken care of I don't worry about the quality of animal that I'm getting anything like that so
um just a shameless plug because we've got a great relationship with him and I trust him
so we are here at the trailhead got the llamas um tied up to the horse trailer the ground was
too hard to get the stakes in so we had to get creative and tie them up to the horse trailer
which worked and they were I think they were tired from the ride over too I think they were tired of
standing in it so here we go time to load up the llamas stock is work like even with llamas as low
maintenance as we've sold llamas to be remember you've got work so every day I have to take care
of these animals they're my responsibility they're going to serve me well on a heavy pack out
saying that make sure that you are at a point
where you are just prepared to take care of animals
as part of your trip I've reached the point where I think it's fun to have them along
but not everybody does just a thing to kind of remember there so we're actually kind of a good
situation here um we're gonna be going in pretty light um Tommy's gonna be the about 60 some pounds
I I think Peak is going to be 50 or something so that gives us some wiggle room when we get a
deer because that's how heavy our packs are going to be minus the food say I kill kill four days in
well that means I've eaten four days worth of food so about half the food I've gotten is gone
but what that also means is that we can put more weight on the llamas on the way out we don't kill
them on the way in so this is this first time packing you got to figure it out now if you can
imagine if we brought a third llama that was just for strictly meat hauling four llamas can
get you can get an elk out on four llamas I think that's what Scott recommended what I'm doing
so I've got my my food right here that's all my camp stuff and we did kind of the same
thing with Evan so we put in one bag at a time we add kind of angly until we get it memorized
where each piece goes i'm gonna give these guys a little bit of grain to start off the day so
all right
so we're about ready to go so I'm gonna grab the llamas we're gonna start hiking
Evan's about to get his first experience with llamas too
one of the lesser known facts about llamas they take forever to drink water it was
something to look at as you consider using them they don't exactly start
drinking it right away you have to give them plenty of time you have to be patient
all right so Evan and I filtered a bunch of water just grabbed a bunch of other water
put it in bladders we've gotta because of how much mountain house and stuff I cook
we're just gonna we boil that obviously and so we didn't need to filter that much
so we did enough that basically got two days worth of water to drink and then then we should be ready
to filter again we'll see we may need to run the llamas to water at that point but we got
about three gallons of water for the llamas and then there's another six liters of water that's
just for the mountain house that sort of thing so to rule of thumb for back country hunting
anything you could see yourself needing if you got separated from your stock is what I have in
my backpack I know some guys don't put anything in there but what if those two things run away
how am I going to survive so I've got one day's worth of food I've got a puffy jacket got my rain
gear two liters of water which I can get back to the trailhead on easily enough and then also
the next piece of the equation that is also anything else that I might need to survive
like overnight while being able to boil some water so my stove is with me not with the llamas
so there you go that's how I've developed my system and why I've got a little bit of weight
all right so we made it to the top still breathing heavy not as young
as I once was so the llamas did just fine they're
loaded up with water now we're gonna go probably hike another 10 minutes
I've got a couple spots we can put a camp if we want to we can set out the llamas let them eat as
you can see they're obviously hungry they'll maybe offer them some water then we're gonna go glass
you ready let's go Tommy