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Show Dinosaurland ) Outdoors ByHarttWixom '. ; . - Vernal Express Outdoors Writer Sheepherders enjoy life Some of the most imteresting people I've met haven't all been city banquet speakers. They've been sheepherders. Take Mauricio Vaulnzulea, for example. I sam him during the archery hunt north of Strawberry Reservoir. I stopped to discuss boundaries of the water users' association, and how to reach public land on the Uinta National Forest. But, for a while we just talked. "Been here 19 years," Mauricio told me. "I've never seen more deer than this year. Deer everywhere. Saw one that would go 40 inches, no, closer to 50, on the ridge above here last week. Going to be a challenge for someone, that one is." With Indian, rather than traditional Basque ancestry, Mauricio looked a happy 65 years. "Don't you want to get into the city once in a while?" I asked him. "Went once for three days," he told me. "Stayed for two." When I learned he had been all over the West with his sheperd trade, including in-cluding New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Oregon, I asked him where he like it best. "Right here. Oregon too much rains. Right here it is beautiful." He looked at the lush green meadows surrounding his chuck wagon and said it again: "beautiful!" Mauricio said he found a bear track one day going north. "I go south," he emphasized. He also said elk were scarce in the area, but he had seen two bull moose with regularity in the beaver ponds near the ridge where he had spotted the giant buck. I had to agree with him, he enjoyed a rich life indeed. "Winter too cold to stay?" I asked him. "Too cold," he hugged at his ribs. "I take sheep over Strawberry down Tank Hollow to Spanish Fork Canyon, over to Thistle and Pay son. Maybe a hundred miles. Then, take them to the desert for the winter. I watch out for them again on the low country. More coyotes down there." I looked inside his chuck wagon. It didn't look like the ones I imagined from cowboy cattle driving days. It was spotless white, almost like guilded ivory. "Have shelves and drawers for everything," he told me. "When winter comes someone else takes it while four cowboys help me move sheep. Best home anywhere. I glad to get back to it." Do only the uneducated society's "outer fringe" like babysitting sheep : year after year? Certainly not Mauricio. He told me of his wife who died of a lingering disease years ago in Omaha. "She give me four sons and four daughters before she die. I have peaceful life here, and can think of her." He also knew Spanish. I didn't. He knew more languages than I. He could have told me much more. I went to my bow hunting between two confabs with Mauricio. A hunting partner and I found the forestland where we could search for bucks. I got within 40 yards of one, 50 of another, not close enough for my seldom-practiced Robin Hood accuracy. But, I enjoyed the day, probably like Mauricio, as much because of the tranquil, emerald country as anything else. It's hard for me to get deadly serious on the bow hunt anyway. I'm not yet that proficient. The rifle quest is so much easier I'm busy every second sleuthing down venison. In this one, I took time out to enjoy glassing fawns at play, goshawks, and bluebirds, a badger which tried to poke his head into every log around. 4 He succeeded at none of them, finally waddling off disgustedly out of sight. Now, if he'd been a buck, I'd had a chance. Ditto if does were legal. I don't understand why they're not. After all, later on many units will open for an-terless an-terless shoots only. If we must harvest does, why not let the archers go after some of them? How much could they hurt the resource? The world is too complicated with questions like that. Maybe Mauricio is right after all. |