High Sierra Topix

I took a quick day hike up Mt Langley this past weekend (9/19/2015). The weather was about as nice as it could get: high 40's when I left the trail head, blue skies, only very slight south-southwesterly breeze making sure the Rough fire smoke stayed clear.

I love driving up Lubkin Road in September through the fields of sunflowers. This year there aren't as many as prior years, but it's still nice. I dream of living in that little yellow house on the north side of the road. It was a quick hike to my first sighting of Mt Langley. And then up to 4th Cottonwood Lake to make my way to (old) Army Pass. The real treat on this trip was sighting sierra big horn sheep for the first time ever. When I'm in areas I know are home to big horn I always stop and look, but I've never seen them. This time it was pure luck that I spotted them. I was stopping to breath below a cairn near the summit and looked up and noticed something moving. My camera was handy so I snapped a few photos of 2 sheep that were crossing my path just ~50 meters away. They seemed unconcerned even though I was giddy from excitement and/or lack of oxygen. The sighting was a real treat and the highlight of another spectacular day in the Sierras.

You probably saw me wandering around the area on that same day.

I guy I know down south took a bunch of photos of sheep as he went up Langley last year. One of his photos shows 18 sheep together. Another shows a couple of them mating. In all my travels I have only ever seen them once and hell he catches them f%$king.

I don't know if his facebook is private. If not check this link

Rogue - the Facebook link worked. Thanks! Pretty amazing photos.

On the day I spotted the two sheep, another hiker on the summit said he'd seen 6 moving along the western ridgeline below the summit but they were too far away to photograph well. I've always spotted evidence of sheep on Langley, just never seen them myself. In that terrain even up close they need to move to be noticed/seen.

Yeah I saw them on Barnard once. They blend in so well that when you first spot them your not sure what your seeing.

Cloudlesssky,

I wonder how many Hollywood stars have driven down Lubkin Road.

I saw my Langley Bighorn in June.
My goat wasn't as close but he had bigger horns.

It certainly is exciting!

-Russ

I'm heading up to Langley the first weekend of October, hopefully I'll manage to see a couple.

When I hiked White Mtn Peak the last weekend of July we saw a group of three on our way up Silver Canyon Rd out of Laws.

Thanks for the report and nice sheep sightings!

Man, Russ's photo shows how hard they are to spot if they're not really really close by.

Very cool. One more reason to visit this great area!

Spotted two when coming down from the summit of Mount Langley on 10/3: