Sheep and Cattle Grazing in the High Country

Sheep and Cattle Grazing in the High Country. . , Cattle and sheep have grazed the National Forest high country for many years and on occasion you can still glimpse sheep grazing in the meadows across the road. In the late 1800s, Longhorn cattle grazed the San Juan high country during the warm summer months and in the fall were driven to lower elevations in what was called a "stock rush" before the long winter settled in., By the early 1900s, most of the ranchers had replaced cattle with sheep, which were more adaptable to the higher elevations., Before Highway 145 was improved for truck use in the early 1950s, the Rio Grande Southern Railroad moved nearly a half a million head of livestock out of the high country every year between September and November The sheep pens below and across the road were used to load the animals onto rail-cars until 1951, the year of the last stock rush. Trucks are now used to transport the sheep to lower pastures for the winter., As you drive or hike through the Forest, keep an eye out for carvings on the aspen trees. Many of these carvings, such as the one shown here were made by Hispanic and Native American sheep herders between the 1920s and 1960s.