Desert Bighorn Sheep, Palm Canyon Trail, Anzo Borrego Desert State Park, CA

My Year Poem from yesterday concerned encounters with Desert Bighorn Sheep in Anzo Borrego Desert State Park’s popular Palm Canyon. Yesterday was my third hike up the canyon to the Palm Oasis, the first about 6 years ago, and then last year and this. Twice now, on my first hike, and then again yesterday, just where the stream begins to run in its bed, where the Alternate Trail branches off, I have encountered groups of Desert Bighorn Sheep feeding on their way back up from drinking at the stream. The first time was magical as I was alone, and suddenly found myself surrounded by Bighorns. Yesterday I followed a group of tourist/photographers up the Alternate Trail because the Sheep had been seen there from across the canyon on the main trail. There were a dozen of us and three Sheep, but it was still just as magical…just in a different way. Desert Bighorns, at least in Palm Canyon where they encounter people most days, pay little attention to the tourists. They just go about their life-long business of finding enough water and green growth to keep body and soul together in their harsh habitat. This well worn warrior, a ram, shows the effects of both his struggle to survive and his struggle to maintain his harem. Those horns have seen many a battle over breeding rights.

Nikon P900 at 1400mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f7.1. Processed in Lightroom.

And here is the poem (with apologies to Emily Dickinson).

Who doesn’t hope for
Desert Bighorn Sheep
when hiking Palm Canyon
(in Anzo Borrego State Park)?

A single encounter is addictive.

Once I stood surrounded
as 15 sheep fed within
20 feet of me, and turned
with that pickling on the
back of my neck feeling to see
one on a bolder right above
me, looking down my collar…

And today… a ram, a ewe,
and maybe a yearling,
went about their business
oblivious to the dozen
would-be photographers
(DSLRs with kit zooms
and even a few phones)
clicking away on the trail
above them…close, so
close I could see the dust
in their coats…so close
you could hear their teeth
tear at the fresh shoots that
sprouted after yesterday’s rain.

I have hiked Palm Canyon
many times and not seen
them…but that does not
stop me hoping every time.

Hope is a thing with horns.