Summer of Love Special

Playing Follow the Llama
Hiking the steep terrain of the Rio Grande Gorge is much easier when your FOUR-FOOTED companion can carry 60 to 80 pounds on his back.
By Lynn Coulter

I’m standing at the trailhead, listening for the rush of the Rio Grande in the gorge below, breathing in the spicy scents of pinyon and juniper, when the llamas start to hum. Stuart Wilde, our intrepid hiking guide, rips open a big nylon bag with his pocketknife and gestures to the dozen or so tourists who have signed up for this half-day trek. “Dig in,” he urges, grinning, and I plunge both hands into a mixture of sweet feed, oats and other grains.

One of the llamas, a handsome cream-colored male named Azul, is kneeling, camel-like, beside Wilde’s truck, so I stoop to offer him the snack and revel in the feel of his warm nose nuzzling my fingers. With his soft, fuzzy ears, buckteeth and gentle disposition, he reminds me of an overgrown white rabbit. He munches as he watches me with a chocolate brown eye, then swivels his head to reveal a sky blue one.

“Azul was my first llama,” says Wilde, a passionate naturalist and New York native who ditched his unsatisfying city life to open a wilderness adventures business back in 1992. When Azul stands up, Wilde stuffs water jugs, sandwiches and fruit for our lunch into a satchel fastened over his strong back. “We’ve spent tens of thousands of hours and miles together over the last 18 years,” Wilde says. “He’s getting close to retirement, but he still likes to come out and do this.”

Azul looks like a wise and laid-back kind of guy, and those are both desirable traits when you’re choosing a hiking companion for a steep descent like this one, which begins in the Wild Rivers Recreation Area of New Mexico, about 35 miles north of Taos. But before I can stow my gear in his pack, another hiker in the group starts loading from the opposite side. It’s like having somebody jump into a cab you had waiting at the curb.

Except for their humming, llamas are rather quiet creatures, which has earned them the name “silent brothers.”

No matter. Wilde sorts us all into groups of three, two hikers per animal, and passes me a bright red lead attached to Zephyr, a young, black llama who’s the feisty teenager in his herd. “Ready to go?”

It’s only about a mile from the trailhead to the bottom of the canyon, a fairly easy journey despite some switchbacks on the narrow path, although of course Zephyr is doing the heavy lifting. He likes it when I stroke the wiry hair on his neck, but I try to walk slightly behind or ahead of him, as llamas prefer to travel single file. In spite of what you’ve heard, there’s little chance of being spat at, although llamas can engage in spitting contests. It’s a “guy thing,” Wilde explains, a dominance behavior between males—not something his nicely trained llamas usually do. Soon Zephyr and two other llamas, K2 and Domino, take up Azul’s hum. It’s a nasal little sound the animals use to communicate with each other and to express everything from curiosity to nervousness. “It’s like their whistle as they walk through the woods,” Wilde says. “Llamas are prey animals, and they’re nervous by nature. When you’re food for somebody else, you’re never all that settled.”

Except for their humming, llamas are rather quiet creatures, which has earned them the name “silent brothers” among the indigenous people of the Andean highlands. Once domesticated by the Incas, llamas nearly became extinct when that civilization collapsed with the Spanish conquest in the 1500s. (The conquistadors introduced their own livestock.) They’re actually part of the camelid family—think camels without humps—and they’ve been used in South America as beasts of burden, and as a source of wool and fiber, for over 6,000 years.

As we descend, we hit some rough patches on the trail. Pebbles roll under my feet, sometimes making me slip, and occasionally we’re forced to pick our way over an outcropping of rocks, but within an hour, we reach the river. The hilly terrain is no challenge for our four-footed companions. Llamas have feet, not hooves, with split toes that give them their sure footing. The animals literally leave a small footprint on the earth, and the priciest hiking boots can’t match the equipment of these furry mountaineers when it comes to stability and agility.