Pat & Sharon O'Toole

Highway 789
Sweetwater County, Wyoming
photo by Sharon O'Toole

We are once again trailing north to the Red Desert for the winter. Trailing is absolutely essential to us. I think we probably trail more than anyone in the United States, traversing about 150 miles each way, spring and fall, from the mountains to the desert, and back. The high price of fuel has made this practice even more critical to our operation, and it is the easiest on the landscape, leaving only a small “carbon footprint” in today’s jargon.

Due to a complicated and bizarre series of events, the BLM required us to take a different and difficult trail for the first part of our push north, from our Cottonwood pasture north of Dixon, Wyoming to our Badwater pasture, southwest of Rawlins. It entailed several miles of driving the sheep right up Wyoming 789, through the heart of the oilfield traffic. It was dangerous, but we flagged a lot, and notified the Highway Patrol, and made the passage without incident.

We have spent the past several weeks at Badwater, which, contrary to its name, has good reservoirs and sufficient water—at least until the reservoirs freeze. We did not graze there all summer, and had feed to go to. Badwater is on the Continental Divide, and when winter comes there, it comes in a hurry.

With the drought, we have not had much snow. Our winter’s destination is Wyoming’s Red Desert, northeast of Wamsutter, Wyoming. These allotments, Cyclone Rim and Chain Lakes, have very little natural water and a small amount of developed (read wells) water, so we depend on snowfall for the sheep to survive the winter. We had to wait for snow in the north country before we could move. Interestingly, I looked at last year’s records (and this blog) and found we were moving on the same dates in 2006.

It is important that we reach our winter pastures before we put the rams in with the ewes, so that they are in optimal conditions, conducive to romance.

Here are photos from last month’s trail up the highway.

Guard dogs and lame ewes
Horsetrailer on trail
photo by Sharon S. O'Toole

Sheep on highway
photo by Sharon O'Toole

Traffic behind
photo by Sharon O'Toole

More trailing
photo by Sharon O'Toole

Rear view
photo by Sharon O'Toole

Leaving the highway
photo by Sharon O'Toole

Heading north
photo by Sharon O'Toole

Nelson after crossing the highway
photo by Sharon O'Toole

A dry day on the other trail
Powder Rim, Sweetwater County
photo by Sharon O'Toole