#mule packing

Mule packers in the Mule Days parade

The first group is from Rock Creek Pack Station, one of several pack stations that still run in the Eastern Sierra. The second group is from McGee Creek Pack Station, another local Eastern Sierra station. I didn't get the name of the third group, but they are another pack string in the Sierra tradition.

And one of these is not like the others!

That last photo is the US forest service's pack string, but you'll notice that the packs look much different than the previous three photos. These mules are using a Decker pack saddle, which is more associated with pack strings in places like Montana and Wyoming.

Above: Decker Pack Saddle (not my photo, image sourced from Outfitter's Supply)

Here in the Sierra Nevada, the vast majority pack strings traditionally use a Sawbuck style pack saddle. These have a wooden frame that sits across the back.

My latest favorite thing: turning pictures into paintings and drawings.

Western Addition

The mule has been deliberately bred by man since ancient times. The inhabitants of Paphlagonia and Nicaea (the northern and northwestern parts of modern day Turkey) are said to have been the first to breed mules. Mules were known in Egypt since before 3000 BC and for some 600 years - between 2100 BC and 1500 BC -mules were the preferred pack animal.

Norman B. Livermore Papers Open to Researchers

The Norman B. Livermore, Jr. papers are now open to researchers at the Bancroft Library. 

Norman B. Livermore, Jr. was born in 1911 in San Francisco to Norman B. Livermore, Sr. and Caroline Livermore (for whom Mt. Livermore on Angel Island is named). He was the great-grandson of California pioneer and state senator (from El Dorado County) Horatio Gates Livermore and the grandson of Horatio Putnam Livermore. 

Norman B. Livermore, Jr. was a noted California conservationist and Secretary of Resources under Governor Ronald Reagan. He was also an avid and accomplished mule packer and guide and, in the 1930s and 1940s, was actively involved in running packing stations and leading pack trips into the Sierra. The lovely ephemera pictured above comes from the group of materials in Livermore’s collection documenting his work as a packer and his lifelong interest in pack trips in the California wilderness.

In 1967, Governor Reagan named Norman B. Livermore, Jr. as Secretary of Resources, hoping that Livermore (who had been Treasurer for the Pacific Lumber Company) would act as a bridge between the worlds of lumber and conservation. Livermore would become one of Reagan's closest advisors. It was Livermore who encouraged Reagan to take the pack trip into the high Sierra that convinced that governor to oppose the building of a freeway from the Central Valley across the Sierra into Nevada. Livermore also played a key role in Reagan's decision to curtail development in the Tahoe Basin. 

Livermore served on the boards of the National Audubon Society, the Peregrine Fund, Save the Redwoods League, Tamalpais Savings and the Stanford Business School Advisory Council. He was the founder of the High Sierra Packers Association and treasurer of the Commonwealth Club.