The wind has picked up, howling so loud that it is impossible to hear the sheep bleating to one. Knowing that herders will take their own route and it is a guess as to the actual whereabouts, we scan the ridge and only see mirages of what may be sheep or Armando, but which turn out to be a tree or a group of sagebrush. Mike and I grab our backpacks and take off through the thick sagebrush, down a ravine and up over onto the ridge. Evan points to a ridge between a stand of tall aspen trees and says that is where we should find him. Typically, the herders like to start at dawn, so we are already behind schedule in finding Armando. The next morning greets us with blue skies and a brisk wind. I stare up at the top of my tent listening to far-off coyotes and waiting for dawn to break. I am instantly grateful for them and wonder how the herders must feel when this happens and they must get up and walk out into the night to see what is out there. I wake at 2:30 in the morning hearing the dogs run off into the dark, barking furiously at something. It is dark when we finally arrive at camp and I go to bed tired. They rely on radios and scanning the hillsides with binoculars in order to try and keep track, one of the only concessions to modern technology that they employ. Each herder will go off years of instinct, watching the weather to determine what path to take, so finding them can often be quite hard. We say our goodbyes to Taza and on the way to our camp Evan talks about the logistics of moving the sheep, how it can take hours, depending on where the herders are, to position their wagons for them. I question what it will be like helping herd 1,300 sheep the next day with one of Helle’s other herders, Armando. I take a couple photos of the flock, and as I look up from my camera I discover how well they blend into the environment.
I shrug deeper into my coat knowing that the forecast is calling for snow later in the week. I try to make friends with his dogs, but they look at me with suspicion in their eyes and stay at a distance.Īs I am taking photographs the wind snaps at me. When Evan tells him I am writing an article, he looks over at me and smiles. He asks Evan in broken English why I am here. What captures me instantly is his kind eyes and his genuine smile. His cowboy hat is stained dark and curled, bandana worn and frayed, coat ten different shades of brown from years of hard work on this landscape. There Taza stands silhouetted by the distant cliffs of Black Butte, where his trip started days earlier. As I try to see out the truck’s hazy side window, an image emerges over by the fence line and I feel as if I have stepped back in time. Mike, Evan Helle and I find him on a hillside resting the sheep. On my first day we set out to find Taza, who has been herding for the Helle family for over twenty years. While I am on this sheep trail, I will get a brief glimpse into a life virtually unchanged for a century or more.
This is where the herders call home, living in their sheepherder wagons from July until October, herding up to 2,000 in one flock. The landscape is varied with long plateaus where the wind howls, sub-alpine forests, meandering streambeds and thick stands of sagebrush that roll over the jagged hillsides.
The Gravelly range is vast with most of it sitting well above 9,000 feet. I contacted Mike, who works in their marketing department, and somehow talked my way into joining their annual fall sheep trail, covering fifty miles in six days with an average of fifteen miles per day in order to get the livestock to the Helle ranch for winter. The Helle family has been keeping this tradition alive in a small corner of Montana, herding sheep in the Gravelly range outside Dillon for the last ninety years. But does Montana summon images of the lone sheepherder tending his flock and enduring days of solitude, bitter cold and the intense summer heat? The name Montana conjures up cowboys herding cattle on the open prairie, and gunfighters hiding out in canyons to hide from rope-swinging vigilantes.
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