This post was written by Jackie Williams, 2012 Information Center & Bookstore Assistant.
Hearing rocks fall while standing at the bottom of a mountain cliff with lots of talus immediately below the cliff makes a person look up. Hearing more rocks fall thirty seconds after the first gets the adrenaline going. Falling rocks can turn into a dramatic rock slide, or they can amount to nothing much at all. When I heard the sounds of moving rocks a third time, I could tell the noises were closer to me so I pulled out my binoculars and began scanning the slope above. It was either a very determined human traversing the talus field, or something else. It turned out to be seven Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep.
They were moving in single file across the steep rock face, just above the talus, perhaps 400 feet above me and a quarter of a mile distant. I pulled out my camera and took a few photos. They worked their way across the rocky cliff, then onto an upland alluvial slope where they settled down amidst some bushes where they lay down and rested for a bit.
Those bighorn sheep knew I was there, no doubt. The photos showed a couple of them staring straight at me.
that’s really cool Jackie. thanks for sharing.
A few years ago my son, Michael, and I were hiking the south wall of Lundy Canyon west of Lake Canyon. We came around a rocky ridge and came within a hundred feet or so of a ram and two ewes at about the same elevation. They checked us out then quickly (but not panicked) made their way up the talus, in an out of some trees, and then out of sight. It was my first up close sighting after more than 50 years in the canyon. It almost matched in adrenaline our sighting of a mountain lion a couple of years before at about 50 feet distant.