It’s day 13 of hide and seek in the San Juan Mountains and so far llamas Clavio and Cisneros are winning.
The two animals escaped from experienced llama packers on July 26, five days into their excursion in the Uncompahgre Wilderness east of Ridgway.
Sisters Lisa Balcomb and Barbara Rogers are currently scouring the Cimarrons, where a hiker snapped a photo of Clavio and posted the animal’s coordinates to an online mountaineering forum. Lisa had been soliciting any leads for the lost llamas online.
Andrew Mueller, who was hiking through the area, encountered Clavio on Saturday, when he was walking near the Wetterhorn Basin Trailhead.
“For a llama I suppose it might have been a bit easier, but it’s a pretty rocky ridge up at the top,” Mueller said.
Before he started his hike he saw a missing llama poster near the Middle Fork Trailhead. But the sign read that the llamas went missing in the East Fork, so he was surprised to find them at the opposite edge of the basin to the west.
When he didn’t hear from Lisa after uploading his llama intel Saturday evening, he gave her a call Sunday morning.
She sounded excited to receive information, Mueller said.
“She had a bit of confidence in her voice,” he said.
The sisters are currently off the grid and on the hunt, so Lisa’s husband, Mark, filled the Plaindealer in on the chase.
With the two llamas and a dog in tow, the women posted up on a section of their hike in a valley with neighboring sheep, Mark said. But the distance didn’t dissuade a livestock guardian dog, which was protecting a flock and lunged and attacked Lisa’s dog, Nick.
“It was like being attacked by a polar bear, and she tried to beat that dog off of our dog,” Mark said.
In the fray of the dog fight, Clavio ran away, dragging Lisa 30 yards, who was trying to hold on to the animal’s halter and lead, Mark said. Cisneros also broke loose during the episode. Along with the llamas, the sisters lost all of their gear.
Nick the dog was unharmed, and was protected by his own gear pack, which is what the livestock guardian dog latched onto, Mark said.
Left with nothing, they had no choice but to hike out about 10 miles, toward Lake City. Then they notified local law enforcement and left notes at trailheads around the area.
Mark picked them both up and drove them all the way back around to their truck. They got into a hotel in Montrose at dark.
Rogers’ husband came down that evening, too, and the couple returned to the mountains for nearly a week as a binocular-clad search team, to no avail.
They were able to locate a couple of the pannier packs that had fallen off of the fugitive llamas after a hiker who had heard of the incident contacted Lisa about the stray packs.
Rogers and her husband were the first to encounter the packs and retrieved all of the remaining food, giving them a fuel boost and allowing them to stay on the search for a few more days. They then hiked the rest of the gear out a few miles to a trail closer to the edge of the forest, so that the Balcombs could collect and carry them out the rest of the way.
The panniers made it back safely July 31, but the llamas are still at large.
“I’m glad Lisa will be there because she’s a lot better at catching them than anyone,” Mark said.
The plan is to locate and lure them with grain, Mark said. If they can get close enough they’ll be able to attach to their halters and lead them out of the backcountry.
Though the Balcombs have their own llamas in their hometown of Rifle, Clavio and Cisneros are rented from a friend who runs a llama-leasing company in Masonville, which is near Fort Collins.
“I don’t really know these llamas,” Mark said.
He thinks the sister search team has a 50/50 chance of finding them.
“They had ’em real friendly, and could catch ’em real easy, but I don’t know how wild they’ve gotten since then,” Mark said.
If they can’t find them, there’s not really anyone else to call. And there are no laws holding any of the parties accountable. But Mark said they would be responsible for the cost of the llamas, estimated to be $10,000.
Mark and some of his friends, all pilots, thought about flying over the area. But it’s a needle in a haystack.
“I don’t know what’s gonna happen,” Mark said. “There’s a hell of a chance of anything, I think.”
Anyone with information about the llamas’ whereabouts is asked to call the Balcombs’ home phone: 970-876-2051.
