THE BIGHORN IN THE SNOW
One winter morning an old mountain sheep came down from the heights,
through the deep snow, and called at my cabin. We had already spent a
few years trying to get acquainted. Most of these slow advances had
been made by myself, but this morning he became a real neighbour, and
when I opened the door the Master of the Crags appeared pleased to see
me. Although many a shy, big fellow among the wild folks had accepted
me as a friend, I had not even hoped to have a close enough meeting
with a wild bighorn ram to make an introduction necessary for good
form.
I stood for a moment just outside the cabin door. The situation was
embarrassing for us both; our advances were confusing, but I finally
brought about a meeting of actual contact with bighorn. With slowness
of movement I advanced to greet him, talking to him all the while in
low tones. Plainly his experiences assured him that I was not
dangerous, yet at the same time instinct was demanding that he
retreat. For a time I held him through interest and curiosity, but
presently he backed off a few steps. Again I slowly advanced and
steadily assured him in the universal language--tone--that all was
well. Though not alarmed, he moved off at right angles, apparently
with the intention of walking around me. I advanced at an angle to
intercept him. With this move on my part, he stopped to stare for a
moment, then turned and started away.
I started after him at full speed. He, too, speeded, but with
snowshoes I easily circled him. He quickly saw the folly of trying to
outrun me; and if he did not accept the situation with satisfaction,
as I think he did, he certainly took things philosophically. He
climbed upon a snow-draped boulder and posed as proudly as a Greek
god. Then he stared at me.
Presently he relaxed and showed a friendly interest. I then advanced
and formally introduced myself, accompanying my movements with rapid
comment and chatter. I asked him if he was glad to be alive, asked his
opinion concerning the weather, the condition of his flock, and
finally, told him that game preserves was one of my hobbies, and in
such refuges I trusted he had a deep interest. All this, while within
a few yards of him and in a most friendly tone; still he remained
almost coldly curious.
At last I begged the rare privilege of taking his picture, and as he
was not in a place for good picture-taking, I proceeded to drive him
to a spot closer to my cabin. To my astonishment he was willingly
driven! He went along as though he had often been driven and as though
going to a place of which he was fond!
Among scattered pines and willows by my brook I circled him and took a
number of photographs. At last I walked up to my bighorn friend,
rubbed his back and felt his horns. He was not frightened but appeared
to enjoy these attentions, and to seem proud of my association. But,
my big speechless fellow, I had the most from your call!
Twice afterward, once in the winter and once mid-summer, he called and
came up to me, and with dignified confidence licked salt from my hand.
In both the Sierras and the Rocky Mountains there are numerous flocks
of bighorn or wild mountain sheep which have a resident stamping
ground above the timberline, at an altitude of 12,000 feet. They
appear not to migrate, although they go often into the lowlands; in
spring for the earliest green stuff, in summer for salt or for a
change, and during the winter when conditions commend or command such
a move. With the coming of a storm or if there is an attack on them,
they at once climb high among the crags, up close to where the eagles
soar.
The heights thus is the home of wild sheep. The young are born in bare
places among the crags and the snowfields. All stand the storms up
close to the sky. They are warmly wrapped; their long, coarse outer
coat of hair is almost waterproof and defies the cold.
One of my trips as Snow Observer carried me across the wild
Continental Divide while the sky was clearing after a heavy snowfall.
In climbing to the summit I passed close to three herds of deer that
were stranded in deep snow. But the high wind had swept the treeless
summit, and in places the snow had been deeply excavated. In other
places it had been thrown into massive drifts. On the summit plateau
at an altitude of 12,000 feet I rounded a crag and came close upon a
flock of mountain sheep in the moorland from which the wind had swept
most of the snow. The sheep were bunched, scattered, and a few were
lying down. Here in the heights the sheep had already forgotten the
storm, while the elk and the deer far down in the wooded slopes were
deeply troubled by the snow. With this open place on the mountain
top, these hardy dwellers of the summit could long be indifferent to
deep snow or to its deliberate melting.
They bunched in the farthest corner of their wind-cleared place and
eyed me curiously while I went by. I back-tracked their wallowed trail
to the nook in which they had endured the three-day storm. This place
was nearly a mile distant, but over most of the way to the snowless
pasture the sheep had travelled on the very edge of the plateau, from
which wind and gravity had cleared most of the snow. They had stood
through the storm bunched closely against a leeward plateau wall
several yards below the summit. The snow had eddied down and buried
them deeply. It had required a long and severe struggle to get out of
this snow and back through it to the summit, as their footmarks and
body impressions plainly showed.
This storm was a general one and deeply covered several states. It was
followed by two weeks of cold. For several hundred miles along this
and other ranges the deer and the elk had a starving time, while the
numerous flocks of sheep on summits escaped serious affliction.
Evidently mountain sheep know their range and understand how to fight
the game of self-preservation in the mountain snows. The fact that
sheep spend their winters on the mountain summits would indicate that
they find a lower death rate and more comfort here than they could
find in the lowlands.
The morning I started across Sawtooth Pass the snow was deep. A gray
sky and a few lazily falling snowflakes indicated that it might be
deepened. And soon the flakes were falling fast and the wind was
howling. Only between gusts could I see. But on I went, for it was
easier to advance than to retreat.
I passed over the summit only to find the wind roaring wildly on the
other side. Abandoning the course of the snow-buried trail, I went
with the wind, being extremely careful to keep myself under control
lest the breezes boost me over an unexpected cliff. The temperature
was a trifle below zero, and I watched nose, fingers, and cheeks to
keep them from freezing.
Two violent gusts drove me to shelter beneath a shelving rock. After
half a minute a long lull came and the air cleared of snow dust. There
within thirty feet of me were a number of mountain sheep. Two were
grazing in a space swept bare by the wind. Another was lying down, not
in shelter, but out in an exposed place.
Then I caught sight of two lambs and I failed to see what the other
sheep were doing. Those lambs! They were in a place where the wind
hit violently, as the bare space around them showed. They were pushing
each other, butting their heads together, rearing up on their hind
legs. As I watched them another gust came roaring forward; they
stopped for a second and then rushed toward it. I caught my last
glimpse just as it struck them and they both leaped high to meet it.
I was in the heights when a heavy snow came down and did not drift. It
lay deeply over everything except pinnacles and sharp ridges. I made a
number of snowshoe trips to see how sheep met this condition. During
the storm one flock had stood beneath an overhanging cliff. When the
snowfall ceased the sheep wallowed to the precipitous edge of the
plateau and at the risk of slipping overboard had travelled along an
inch or less wide footing for more than a mile. Where the summit
descended by steep slope they ventured out. Steepness and snow weight
before their arrival, perhaps with the assistance of their tramplings,
had caused the snow at the top to slip. As the slide thus started tore
to the bottom it scraped a wide swath free of snow. In this cleared
strip the sheep were feeding contentedly.
Snowslides, large and small, often open emergency feeding spaces for
sheep. Long snowshoe excursions on the Continental Divide have often
brought me into the presence of mountain sheep in the snow. They are
brave, self-reliant, capable, and ever alert for every advantageous
opportunity or opening.
One snowy time I searched the heights for hours without finding any
sheep. But in descending I found a number upon a narrow sunny ledge
that was free from snow; the trampling and the warmth of the sheep
probably had helped clear this ledge. Here they could find scanty
rations for a week or longer. I could not make out whether they had
spent the storm time here or had come to it afterward.
In the heights are numerous ledges and knife-edge ridges on which but
little snow can lodge. The cracks and niches of these hold withered
grass, alpine plants, and moss, which afford an emergency food supply
that often has saved snow-bound sheep.
Sheep are cool-headed fellows, as well befits those who are intimately
associated with precipices. But one day, while slowly descending a
steep slope, I unintentionally threw a flock into confusion. Bunched
and interested, they watched me approach within sixty or seventy feet.
I had been close to them before and this time while moving closer I
tried to manipulate my camera. An awkward exhibition of a fall
resulted. The sheep, lost in curiosity, fled without looking where
they leaped. The second bound landed them upon an icy pitch where
everyone lost footing, fell, and slid several yards to the bottom of
the slope. All regained their feet and in regular form ran off at high
speed.
Accidents do befall them. Occasionally one tumbles to death or is
crushed by falling stone. Sometimes the weaker ones are unable to get
out of deep snow. On rare occasions a mountain lion comes upon them
and slays one or several, while they are almost helpless from weakness
or from crusted snow. A few times I have known of one or more to be
carried down to death by a snowslide.
While the sheep do not have many neighbours, they do have sunny days.
Often the heights, for long periods, are sunny and snowless. Sometimes
a storm may rage for days down the slopes while the sheep, in or
entirely above the upper surface of the storm cloud, do not receive
any snow. Among their resident neighbours are the cony, the white
weasel, and flocks of rosy finches and white ptarmigan. In these the
sheep show no interest, but they keep on the watch for subtle foxes,
bob-cats, and lions.
Snowfall, like rainfall, is unevenly distributed. At times a short
distance below the snow-piled heights one or both slopes are snowless;
at other times, the summits are bare while the lowlands are
overburdened with snow. Sheep appear quickly to discover and promptly
to use any advantage afforded by their range.
One snowy winter an almost famished flock of sheep started for the
lowlands. Two thousand feet lower the earth in places lay brown and
snowless in the sun. Whether this condition led the sheep downward, or
whether the good condition of the lowland was unknown to them and they
came in desperation, I know not. Already weak, they did not get down
to timberline the first day. The night was spent against a cliff in
deep snow. The following morning a dead one was left at the foot of
the cliff and the others struggled on downward, bucking their way
through the deep snow.
In snow the strongest one commonly leads. Sometimes sheep fight their
way through snow deeper than their backs. The leading one rears on
hind legs, extends front feet, leaps upward and forward, throwing
himself with a lunge upon the snow. At an enormous cost of energy they
slowly advance.
The flock that fought its way downward from the heights took advantage
of outcropping rocks and, down in the woods, of logs which nearly
lifted them above the snow. Six of the eleven who left the heights at
last reached shallow snow where in a forest glade they remained for
nearly a month.
One winter five sheep were caught in the lowlands by a deep snow. They
had started homeward with the coming of the storm but were fired on by
hunters and driven back. Becoming snowbound they took refuge in a
springy opening at the bottom of a forested slope. This open spot was
not a stone’s throw across. It was overspread by outpouring spring
water which dissolved most of the snow. Here the sheep remained for
several weeks. This place not only afforded a moderate amount of food,
but in it they had enough freedom of movement successfully to resist
an attack of wolves. Apparently wolves do not attack sheep in their
wintry heights. Deer and elk as well as sheep have often made a stand
in a springy place of this kind.
Sheep under normal conditions are serene and often playful. There
appears to be most play when the flock is united. Commonly they play
by twos, and in this play butt, push, feint, jump, and spar lightly
with horns, often rising to the vertical on hind legs. If a bout
becomes particularly lively the others pause to look on. They give
attention while something unusual is doing. One day I saw a flock
deliberately cross a snowdrift when they could easily have gone
around it. But the sheep were vigorous from good feed and a mild
winter and this snowdrift was across the game trail on which they were
slowly travelling.
No wild animal grass eater excels the bighorn sheep in climbing skill,
alertness, endurance, and playfulness. They thrive on the winds and
rations of the heights. Generally the sheep carry more fat when spring
comes than the deer that winter down in the shelter of the woods or in
the lowlands. Any healthy animal, human or wild, who understands the
woodcraft of winter lives happily when drifts the snow.