{"id":26270,"date":"2024-08-06T01:45:50","date_gmt":"2024-08-06T01:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/llama-drama-in-san-juans-2-pack-animals-on-the-lam-after-they-were-attacked-by-a-sheep-dog\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:36:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:36:54","slug":"llama-drama-in-san-juans-2-pack-animals-on-the-lam-after-they-were-attacked-by-a-sheep-dog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/llama-drama-in-san-juans-2-pack-animals-on-the-lam-after-they-were-attacked-by-a-sheep-dog\/","title":{"rendered":"Llama drama in San Juans: 2 pack animals on the lam after they were attacked by a sheep dog"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"(Colorado
(Colorado Sun illustration)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Missing<\/strong>: Two experienced backpackers<\/p>\n

Clothing<\/strong>: None<\/p>\n

Facial Hair<\/strong>: Yes<\/p>\n

Nose<\/strong>: Prominent<\/p>\n

Last seen<\/strong>: 12,000 feet, East Fork Cimarron Trail<\/p>\n

Answer to<\/strong>: \u2018Rones\u2019 and \u2018Vio.\u2019<\/p>\n

Hang on, we\u2019re being told these are llamas. Llamas don\u2019t really answer to anything. Should you spot them, try \u201cHey, llama!\u201d<\/p>\n

Lisa Balcomb realizes her runaway llamas are likely fat, happy and indifferent to human intervention, grazing somewhere in the high meadows and rock-strewn cliffs of the high San Juans. But she\u2019d appreciate it anyway if you called in notice of her best friends upon sighting them while hiking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s sad,\u201d Balcomb said Saturday afternoon, back home at her ranch in Silt, posting \u201cLost Llamas\u201d messages on 14ers.com and any other site she could think of. They\u2019ve left handwritten \u201cmissing\u201d placards at trailheads, and tucked notices stuffed into plastic sandwich bags under the wipers of cars from Lake City to Ouray.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy sister and her husband just spent six days up there looking for them, really hard, you know. And they never saw them. It\u2019s just really sad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balcomb, 69, and her sister Barbara are expert llama packers, having given up their own backpacks to save their knees years ago. They\u2019ve llama-packed the entire Continental Divide Trail, and frequently take two-week hiking trips in the San Juans.<\/p>\n

On July 27, Lisa and Barbara were on the second day of return from a five-day pack-in through the valleys and over the saddles connecting majestic 14ers like Wetterhorn, Uncompahgre and Redcloud. They crested a high ridge with a sublime view into a valley, which included a distant herd of grazing sheep on National Forest meadows.<\/p>\n

Not their first rodeo, the sisters armed themselves for encounters with aggressive sheep dogs and tried to prepare their own dog, Nick. Bear spray at the ready, llama leads held tight, leash on the dog.<\/p>\n

Suddenly a shepherd\u2019s dog lunged from a wash gully and attacked Nick. \u201cWe\u2019ve dealt with sheep dogs before. This one was unbelievably ferocious. I thought, \u2018He\u2019s going to kill him.\u2019 And I started pounding him on the head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barbara aimed the bear spray but was reluctant to pull the trigger and spray all of them with the virulent cloud. One llama, Vio, saw greener, quieter pastures and took off, dragging Lisa across the rocks on her stomach. Lisa feels bad that in fearing for her dog, she lost track of Rones, who also had had enough.<\/p>\n

The llama\u2019s pack panniers, holding the sisters\u2019 food and shelter, were gone as well. They spent hours looking for their mates, but also knew the snacks in their daypacks would only last so long. Lake City was the closest hike.<\/p>\n

As they crossed the valley where they\u2019d seen the sheep, a shepherd emerged from his tent and offered them binoculars. But they couldn\u2019t trade information in English or Spanish \u2013 the shepherd spoke only the Basque of the remote portion of Spain that supplies high-country ranches with migrant sheep specialists.<\/p>\n

Back in Lake City, the sisters alerted the sheriffs in Hinsdale and Ouray counties, whose dispatchers told them of other protective-sheepdog problems. But search parties for llamas \u2013 currently eating like kings, wherever they are \u2013 are not a thing.<\/p>\n

The families will make the long trek from Silt and keep going back to the San Juans in coming days, taking binoculars on more hikes.<\/p>\n

Sunday morning, Balcomb texted she was jumping back into her pickup again for the long drive south. \u201cGot a good sighting and we\u2019re headed down there. Keep your fingers crossed.\u201d<\/p>\n

If not found sooner, she hopes the llamas will eventually make their way down to a ranch or a town when snow starts covering up the high mountain grass. If anyone else spots them, she wants them to call the Hinsdale or Ouray County sheriffs\u2019 nonemergency dispatch, or email newsroom@coloradosun.com<\/a> and we\u2019ll forward the news.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the sisters have other llamas safely at home, inside fences. They too largely ignore their names (Fox and Bud). They won\u2019t go out packing, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re retired,\u201d Lisa said.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

find the best friends Rones and Vio, off-lead, please call your local sheriff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,28,1309],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-26270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-headlines","tag-san-juan-mountains"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79294,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26270\/revisions\/79294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26270"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}