PACKING A LLAMA : ANDEAN BEASTS NOW POPULAR TRAIL BUDDIES.

Byline: Jennifer Kerr Associated Press 

Leslie Berry was leading a day hike in the Trinity Alps when one of her six pack llamas suddenly stopped and looked alertly and calmly up the hill.

Up ahead, a bear was voraciously tearing apart a bee-infested tree stump.

``The llamas just stood and watched,'' Berry says. The bear suddenly noticed his audience, and stared back bemused at the strange, woolly animals that didn't jump and dart away in fright like a deer.

``All six llamas just went on down the trial, and on we went,'' said Berry, a llama rancher who has 13 of the animals on her spread west of Davis.

Their unflappable demeanor - even in the face of bears - is one of the advantages cited by enthusiastic llama backpackers.

``They don't spook on the trail. They step sideways and look. They're just real stoic, quiet and easy to be with,'' Berry said.

Berry shook her llama earrings as she described her encounter with the bear to visitors to a llama packing exhibition. The exhibition was sponsored by the Gold Country Llama Association, consisting of 23 ranches in the foothills northeast and east of Sacramento.

Almost all the women at the exhibition - aimed at new or would-be llama owners who want to backpack - were wearing some kind of llama earrings. For sale at tables scattered around the yard were llama key rings, statues, vests, T-shirts and bolos.

Llama lovers

Llama owners are llama lovers.

Many llama owners and packers become so because the furry natives of the Andes provide a great way to backpack without lugging a heavy pack.

``I had bad back surgery and couldn't backpack any more,'' said Rudy Stauffer, 80, who retired to the Placerville area after running a lodge, steam railroad and other tourist businesses near Yosemite.

He met Francie Greth-Peto, the first llama 'packer in the area, in 1983 and decided llamas were the way he could hike into the wilderness again. Now Stauffer is the owner of five llamas and is a llama 'packer guru, running clinics around Northern California.

Llamas, along with alpaca, guanaco and vicuna, are members of the camel or camelid family. Once they roamed North America, but the Ice Age drove them into South America.

The Incas and other groups domesticated them 5,000 years ago in the Andes Mountains, using them as beasts of burden and sources of meat, wool, hides and fuel from their manure.

Private collectors brought some llamas back to North America in the late 1880s, but it is only in the last few decades that they have grown in popularity. The International Llama Association, based in Denver, estimates there are now about 50,000 llamas in the United States and Canada.

Help for backpackers

Greth-Peto was a fifth-grade teacher 20 years ago when she sought an alternative to carrying a backpack.

``I always wanted to raise animals. I was reminded that these ships of the Andes carried stuff for centuries,'' she said.

She and her husband, Guy Peto, bought five males from a ranch in Oregon that mainly got its stock from zoos and animal game farms. She trained them through trial and error to carry packs, even designing halters and packs herself. Her Mama's Llamas ranch in El Dorado did pack trips for 15 years, but now does only breeding and has 24 llamas.

``It was really a riot starting out,'' she recalls. ``We were rank beginners. No one knew anything.''

Now there are commercial llama packs and other equipment made by several companies, as Stauffer demonstrated at his training session.

He brought out one of his five llamas, Morry, and led him around by his halter. Morry stopped when he stopped and turned when he turned.

``They don't need any commands; they watch you,'' he said.

``But you can't take them to a place that's not safe because then they won't trust you anymore,'' he added.

Leslie Berry and her husband Bruce have owned llamas for nine years and have been leading packing trips with their Trinity Llama Co. for five. They got interested in llamas when their children were small and they realized they couldn't easily backpack with toddlers.

``They're the lowest impact on the environment,'' she said. ``It's virtually like backpacking with deer.''

Environmentally friendly

Llamas have soft padded feet and don't damage trails. They graze gently in a camp area.

Commercial llama packing companies charge about $100 a day per person for a trip, including food and gear. Some also do day hikes, with the llamas carrying lunch.

Stauffer is conducting a series of Heritage Llama Treks, which are day hikes, this summer in historical areas like the Pony Express Trail in the Eldorado National Forest between Placerville and South Lake Tahoe.

Lon Hanke, whose Hanke Llama Ranch was the host for the packing exhibition, says he was ``sort of an urban intellectual'' 11 years ago when he spied a llama on a ranch near his home.

``I just took one look at the llama and said, `That's for me,' '' he said. Now the Hankes have about 50 - several are very pregnant - and sell both the animals and their thick, soft wool.

His wife, Maria, demonstrated a llama kiss. Llamas don't like a human to put out a hand, but prefer a nose-to-nose greeting with the human gently blowing at the animal.

Hanke said he sells llamas to people who want a pet companion, or want to backpack, and even some who want guardians for sheep.

``Llamas will confront coyotes and always best them,'' he said. ``You can cut depredation from coyotes to zero.''

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1) Rudy Stauffer, 80, and Morry hike a California trail. Morry and another llama, Val, tote the gear.

(2) Morry has his pack adjusted by Rudy Stauffer as Val watches while the trios prepare for a hike near Placerville, Calif.

Associated Press