Hillary was a Great Gal, Even with Two Left Feet

by: Gary Sorenson

Anyone that has packed animals has stories.  It can’t be helped, they just happen.  All we could think of when we got our first pack animal  was the work they were going to save us and never did the thought cross our mind about the work they were going to create for us.   This part came real to me again last Saturday as I threw the last bale of nineteen ton in place so I’m ready for another winter.  And this has nothing to do with the work that is created while packing in or out or putting up with pack string blow ups and individual animals temperaments even in camp.  All this is said just to introduce you to my second mule, Hillary.  I would tell you about my first mule but I still get the shakes just thinking about him so I’ll start with Hillary. 

After my first experience with mules I was very selective when I purchased my next one.  Maybe too selective as it seems the pendulum swung the other way and I wanted one that was very very docile.  I ended up with a molly mule that seemed docile to a fault.  Those kind of faults I thought I could handle.  I also learned on our first pack trip with her to never bring an unnamed animal into elk camp unless you are willing to let others name her, because she will come out of camp with a name, thus Hillary.

Hillary and I got along well but she at times didn’t seem too  interested in anything in life, and whatever you wanted her to do she would do, but with very little interest on her part.  Her personality you would have to say was definitely lacking, which was alright with me because I was still  recuperating  from mule #1 who had way too much personality.   She saved our hide and our string one year with her dour attitude as she made a good brake.  We put her on the tail end of the string where she could be pulled to keep up and as fate would have it, where she could act as an anchor when things turned south.  We had a twelve mile pack and we hadn’t gone one mile of it yet, so the animals were still feeling their oats and hadn’t settled down to just pack when out of the blue through the trees comes a guy packing a couple of Llamas.  Our animals had never seen, heard or smelled critters like this and they were on a very short fuse.  They wanted in the worst way to just blow sky high.  The only thing keeping it from exploding was the lead horse kept pulling and Hillary with all four brakes anchored at the other end dragging up the rear kept the animals strung pretty tight.  It was kind of funny though because two miles further down the trail the younger hot bloods were still looking back to see if those strange beasts were still around but all they saw was Hillary glowering back at them for their idiocy.

Hillary’s down fall came somewhere between her sour look on life and the fact that she had two left feet and her middle name was not Grace.  We took turns taking the animals to drink while in camp so I wasn’t with them the day a couple of the guys each took an animal to the spring.  Hillary drank first and stepped back while the horse drank.  While she stood there she just lost her balance and fell over.  How can an animal that sleeps standing up fall over when she’s awake?  But Hillary did.  No one thought to much about it other then having a good laugh about it.  But then someone noticed blood under her and a stick hanging from her underside.  After a closer look, it revealed that when Hillary fell she must have landed on a big branch and (how do you say this tactfully) she had done an almost complete mastectomy on herself.  We were glad she hadn’t punctured her abdomen but this was a real mess.  We doctored her as best we could until we could get her to a vet which was a full five days later.  The vet figured we did an okay job on her and finished the job Hillary had started so it could heal right, and it did. 

Since then I’ve often thought how mules are said to be such sure footed animals.  Maybe most are, but I had one that there was no way I would have ridden her on a cliff trail.  If they can’t stand on their own four feet, I’ll stay on the two of mine.

Tags: hunting, Mules