Rented llamas for the first time last season. Most of the negative posts are way off and are obviously based on experience with untrained animals that were more suited for pets than pack animals. The llamas we rented packed 40 lbs in each panier and top loaded 20 making a total of 100lbs. We were in some pretty rugged country in Southwest CO and I couldn' t begin to out walk one of the things. They never once spit at us and the trainer explained that the animals that do this have been raised as pets and shown affection. They treat their animals well but they are purely pack animals that are well trained and routinely given work outs. They also never layed down on us while packing. They did not spook at the slightest whim like some horses sometimes will. He did tell us that horses did not care for them though. He also told us that most bears didn' t care for the things either and would normally avoid them completely. I know the camp next to us had been seeing bear close to camp everyday until we showed up. After we moved our camp we found out that they had spotted more bears again. If you plan to hunt bears that isn' t a good thing, but if you don' t want bears destroying an elk camp it could work out great. The bear thing may have been purely coincidental but that was our experience with using them. I would gladly use them again.

We did talk to an outfitter who would pack us in with horses if we wanted. And he did explain that he could carry more awkwardly shaped loads due to the larger size of his paniers. And of course as mentioned you can ride a horse. I would also make the assumption that there is the same difference between a typical riding horse and a good mountain horse used for packing, and I have very limited experience with the everyday riding kind and none with a good pack animal.

My problem with the horses is I have very little experience with them and unless the horse was near dead it would probably kill me in the mountains because of some idiot with a llama laying in the middle of the trail. LOL