Dale Matson
Dr. Wehausen
“The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John
10:11b, NIV)
I have a previous article I wrote about the Sierra Nevada
Bighorn Sheep Foundation here. http://midsierramusing.blogspot.com/2014/12/sierra-nevada-bighorn-sheep-foundation.html
John, the director of the Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep Foundation, was scheduled to do a Mt. Langley unit herd count beginning
the last day of August and had just finished the Olancha Peak herd count. He
was kind enough to invite me along a month ago and I continued
hiking/backpacking with the hope I would be able to endure the three-day
effort. My goal for a few years now has been to photograph the endangered
Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep. What better guide could I have hoped for than the
man who heads the organization and has been involved with the restoration of
the Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep for over 40 years?
This story is as much about
John Wehausen as it is about the sheep for which this Renaissance man has made
his life’s work. As an oboe player, he knows Brahms as well as bighorns. It was his trained eyes and binoculars that
found the “rocks with legs” that I photographed.
At age 66, he is as fit a man as I have been with. I was
often lagging behind his brisk pace. He was patient outbound as we climbed up
from the trailhead. He did most of the talking while I worked on breathing.
“The people we select to work with us must be first and foremost mountain
people. We can teach them everything else.”
The main limiting factor for our three-day basecamp was access
to an adequate water source at this high an elevation. He found a one-inch flow
of water and we made camp nearby at about 11,500’. We would partially fill a
cup and pour it into a larger container, then filter the water. As we talked,
our conversation filled in the details of a life John outlined in a dinner
conversation in Bishop CA where he resides. The dinner group consisted of my
wife Sharon, Virginia Chadwick and her husband, John and me.
John can be seen as a
kind of wilderness visionary like Theodore Solomons or John Muir. We talked at
length about Sierra mountain men like Norman Clyde and Orland Bartholomew. I see John as more of a St. Francis who heard the Voice
of Christ from the cross. “Rebuild My Church”. John is as much of a
restorationist as he is a conservationist. As a graduate student at The University of Michigan he
began this bighorn sheep restoration quest. Today, there are about 600 bighorn
sheep in all the herd units scattered along the Sierra crest from Yosemite
south to Olancha Peak. Now it is a matter of building each of the herds to
sustainable critical mass. John has taken care to relocate sheep in a manner
that avoids inbreeding. Their primary enemies are disease from domestic
sheep and predation by mountain lions. Their primary defense is their extreme
home range elevation and their excellent vision.
Like St. Francis, John is a minimalist, shunning the
elaborate and ornate. He had a patch sewn into the back of his shirt reminding
me once again of St. Francis. His well-worn ancient Dana Design backpack is filled
with old stuff including a seasoned spotting scope encased in an old wool sock.
He parked his nondescript sedan facing downhill on Horseshoe Meadows Road so he
could jump-start it coasting down Horseshoe Meadows Road if the battery failed.
His wilderness home is a Bibler Bivy Sack that is no longer made. John told me
that “Bibler the man” lives in Bishop.
Our first day after we set up camp, we walked uphill a ways.
Using his binoculars, John spotted a single sheep atop a pile of rocks and I
got my first photograph of a bighorn sheep. I must admit that I had come to the
mountains as a landscape not a wildlife photographer. My biggest lens was a
70-200mm Sony G e-mount lens. At two pounds, it was also my heaviest lens but I
would have been better off with a 400mm plus lens. I would guestimate that we
were never closer than half a mile to the sheep.
Our second day, we headed out about 10am and were out till
5pm. We were above 12,000’ much of the day and saw three different groups of
sheep amounting to about 20 sheep in all. Bighorn sheep need very little water
and get most of the water they consume through the plant material they eat.
John is somewhat like his sheep. He drank a quart of water before we began our
hike and nothing more till we returned to camp. He is almost as nimble also.
I was amazed how high my pulse was even resting at this
elevation. My resting pulse is usually in the mid 40s but here, it was double
that. My Ambit showed about one third less available oxygen at this altitude.
John offered me some
of his homemade soup prepared from vegetables he grew in his garden. I was glad
for the warming effect. At our base camp altitude, the cool air came before
sundown. I returned a favor by lending him my fuel canister when his partially full canister unexpectedly ran out of fuel.
The view of Olancha Peak and the Cottonwood Lakes drainage
was a wonderful setting for our basecamp. We were spared the smoke that filled
the Owens Valley from the Rough Fire that began in Kings Canyon from a
lightning strike. This is the largest wildfire in California history and at the
time of this writing, is only 25% contained.
On the third day, I opted to rest, recover and walk around
taking photographs while John left camp to coordinate the Langley Herd count by
radio with other spotters located in and around Cottonwood Lakes. He located some
additional sheep including a couple of rams. He returned about 2:30pm and we
broke camp by 3pm. We headed back with the steepest descents helped by creating
our own switchbacks. John was once again patient and waited for me when I began
to lag behind. I believe the sheep taught him patience.
Click to Enlarge Photographs
First Sighting
Crop
White Mountain Peak Center Background 14,252'
Sheep Scat
Olancha Peak
Looking East At The Inyo Mountains
John Spotting Sheep
Author
Elevation
Sheep Territory
John Surrounded By The Vastness
Sheep Territory
Cottonwood Lakes Below Our Campsite
Our Meager Water Source
Cropped Photo Of Sheep
Smokey Sundown Over Mt. Whitney
I am still processing this experience as I reflect on the
three days spent with John. His parting words were, “Let’s stay in touch”. Mine
were, “God Bless from one shepherd to another.” Thanks again John.
