Sheep

On day 3 of a nine-day nature trip, I rolled my ankle on a tree root on a hike with my partner and sustained what I strongly suspect is a grade 1 ATFL (anterior talofibular ligament) tear. No need to use its government name, though!: I sprained my ankle. I felt/heard a loud pop and assumed the worst, but luckily I was able to bear weight on it immediately after, so we started heading back to the trailhead.

Then, within five minutes, I almost rolled it again (lol 🥴) so my partner made us switch shoes in the middle of the forest. I was wearing running shoes because we weren’t planning on doing this hike when we selected our respective footwear for the day and my hiking boots had made my feet hot the day before and if it’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s hot feet (I guess that is two things). But then on an impulse we decided to try the hike and I had to live with my bad decision.

Anyway, I had just tied the second set of laces on the replacement ankle-supportive hiking boots, thanks to my gf, now successfully transferred to my weak-ankled feet, when she got real quiet. I didn’t notice anything until she said in a strange tone, “There is a sheep.” My brain didn’t really process it and I thought it might have been a riddle or something because it didn’t make sense (we were in dense woods, not a clearing or meadow where I might have expected to see an ovine friend), but I looked up and there was, in fact, a very large bighorn sheep standing behind her, looking at us. BELIEVE WOMEN.

The sheep was not doing anything aggressive, just seemed more curious (probably wondering why my gf and I were exchanging our hoof covers in their house), but in any case, we didn’t really want to stick around, so we started backing away slowly. I assume it was instinctual on our part because I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do in a bighorn sheep encounter. Their marketing is not as strong as for bears and mountain lions and other wildlife (and even within bears the difference between black and brown) and when to stand your ground and speak firmly versus back away or fight back vs play dead or what have you¹.

Then another sheep showed up behind the first one. I think they were both females because they had smaller (although still relatively big, thus validating the name of the species) horns that did not curl all the way around. We were still backing away slowly, and the sheep also started backing away slowly. So basically, we two human females and them two sheep females were each looking suspiciously but calmly at the other pair and backing away from each other slowly. As soon as there was some distance between us, we (humans) speed-hiked, as fast as my weak ankles could carry me, until we got back to the trailhead parking lot.

I can honestly say I’ve never had that experience before.

Do you think the sheep is also sharing this story from her POV on sheep internet?

There were other encounters with wildlife on this trip that made me really respect nature. It’s not like we were in the backcountry or anything, but if you spend enough time outdoors you are going to see some animals. There was lots of information about bears and bear spray (which I recently learned is basically just pepper spray, which begs the question of why we don’t call pepper spray “man spray” if we’re naming sprays after that which it is intended to deter) and animals being dangerous but if you think about it the most dangerous animal is the human.

I really appreciated that the parks people were very clear about the wilderness not being a zoo and basically being like, don’t ruin this for everyone, but in a nice way that was educational and informative. I feel like having a camera/camcorder in our pockets at all times (wow, I haven’t thought about the word “camcorder” in a long time), plus the ability to share things a little too quickly and easily to too many people on social media, has led to widespread availability of videos of wild animals being cute, and they can be fun and amazing to watch because you might never see that IRL, but the second order effect is that creates a bigger disconnect from the concept that wild animals are wild, and not meant to be cute things or pets for people to look at or play with.

I mean, I’m not immune to the cuteness or anything… on this trip I was also 🙌 blessed 🙌 to see a mother bear with her two cubs and a mountain goat and her baby mountain goat (both times from the safety of a moving vehicle with no direct interaction other than watching them as we passed) on this trip and they were so cute I wanted to cry.

I live in a big city where I see tourists pretty much every day and many of them are respectful and gracious guests but unfortunately some of them are very entitled and have the wrong attitude about how to behave when you’re visiting someone else’s home. I suspect the entitled ones are the same ones who go to popular nature destinations and want to take selfies with bears or taunt docile sheep or feed chipmunks fried snacks.

Sometimes it’s hard not to think that humans really ruin things, and often severely and irreversibly.

I also just want to say that this note was originally intended to be a reflective recap of my entire trip and how travel makes me a better person and everything but I just kept thinking about the sheep so here we are.

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