About Wes

I am a full time llama, llama recreation, and llama equipment business man and have a beautiful wife Ann, and three wonderful children (now grown and on their own). I've designed most of the llama equipment I use and sell. One of my latest inventions is a llama saddle that will hold a car seat or pull a travois for my little handicapped friend Leah, so we can take her along with her family on our mountain treks.

Leah on travois. Her dad Jim leading llama John Wayne.

I grew up on a farm/ranch near Idaho Falls, Idaho. My dad was an avid outdoorsman who spent winters in the mountains trapping and hunting. He started teaching me about the outdoors and how to survive as early as I can remember. I spent many days when I was little following my dad around in the mountains. He taught me great respect and love for the mountains and the animals that inhabit them.

I am the kind of person that puts 110% into anything I do, and if I become interested in something it is more like an obsession than a hobby. A few years ago archery hunting was my primary interest . While hauling my camp in and elk out (on my back) one fall, I was sure thinking about an easier way to do it. My friend and I talked about horses and mules and then one day he told me to come up and look in his corral - and he had these llamas. "I've been hooked on 'em ever since".

I love these critters. So easy going and calm they are such a stabilizer for the helter skelter mentality that we absorb from such a busy world. I got my first llamas in 1988. I had enough money set aside to buy one female or 10 males. I wanted to pack in the mountains so I had to get the males. It was some years before I was able to afford female llamas. I attended a LANA (Llama Association of North America) Expo in Central Oregon in 1988 and brought back ten potential pack llamas. With all the info I could glean I soon started training and renting llamas for packing and giving packing clinics to train renters and buyers.

I have this problem of believing I can do anything. I come close enough to it that I haven't given up on it yet. My dad used to tell me "you can't do it that way". Instead of defeating my confidence it gave me a dogged determinedness to succeed. I love the truth and how something works - and will be bull headed about sticking with what I think if it has been proven to me. I've been an inventor since as early as I remember and always dreaming up better ways of doing something. When I was about twenty two I was inventing a pipe moving machine for irrigation pipe one winter. When it came time to plow I was still working on it and my dad was pretty upset that I wasn't out plowing instead of working on that contraption. Below are just a few of my inventions. I have a file of over a hundred potential patents.

My friend Leah on JOhn Wayne

back pack archery hunt-1983

first family pack trip-1986

Got my own-1988

first packing clinic-1989


gear hauling cart- 1975	My two story deck-1986	tri mobile for pipe moving-1965. rebuilt-1983	Log house, shop and sheds-1996/98

Gear Hauling Cart - While in the pivot irrigation service I sometimes had to haul gear boxes into the field that weighed nearly 100 pounds. This vehicle was designed to haul heavy gear boxes through a grain field or up the potato rows. It has a little hoist on it to lift the gear boxes onto the flat bed. Small enough to haul in the back of my pickup. My son Lucas had fun driving it around our field.

Two Story Deck - I was building a deck on our house and thought about having a roof over the picnic table area. And then thought "why not have another deck up there.

Trimobile - I invented this vehicle that would go up potato rows when moving irrigation pipe. I was ahead of my time. Now every farmer has a four wheeler.

Built my house - designed and constructed my shop and sheds.

Wes feeding Cobblestone

Trophy mouse

Am serious about getting things done right but do have a sense of humor - and realize - without it, sometimes you can't get things done right!

Wes - life begins at forty

dancing with Marilyn

My first most favorite llama McBritches ended up being somewhat of a disappointment in the mountains. This inspired me to tear down my ideas of the ideal llama and really make a life study of conformation types and what works and what doesn't. That is when I came up with the ten conformation types listed in my book The Working Llama.