If you turn the corner on a little-used mountain bike trail in the forests overlooking the Wasatch Mountain State Park golf course, you just might find yourself face-to-face with a coarse-haired creature, smaller than a horse but bigger than an antelope.
Do not despair.
It’s just Dan and Cathy Kendall out hiking with their llamas.
The Kendalls are the founders and sole proprietors of Mountain Valley Pack Llamas, the mom-and-pop (literally) business they started last year that is both a testament to taking advantage of a tax break and indulging your favorite hobby.
The story begins back during the COVID-19 days, when Dan and Cathy find a house and six acres of land for sale on the outskirts of Heber City. At the time, they’re living in town, but they are both originally from southern Utah and their rural roots are calling them.
The property is just the spot. It gives them the elbow room and the chores for their kids they’ve been wanting, but even with their two good jobs — she’s a teacher, he’s a pilot for Delta Air Lines — it’s going to be a stretch financially.
So when they hear about the greenbelt tax incentive — a government program that reduces your taxes if you do something involving agriculture on your land — they’re all for it.
They can’t grow crops because they don’t have the water. Cows, you have to milk day and night. So they first settle on goats. Or at least Dan does. They can raise pack goats that he can use when he goes hunting in the backcountry.
But it turns out the goats have drawbacks. They don’t carry as much as Dan, an avid hunter, hopes and they don’t walk as fast as he’d like.
That’s when his mind turns to llamas.
Like goats, llamas — cousins to the camel — are pack animals, but they’re bigger than goats and not nearly as big as horses, which is a plus for Dan and Cathy because horses are another level of investment.
Knowing little more about llamas than that they come from the Andes Mountains in Peru and Bolivia, Dan educates himself by spending a few days at a llama ranch in Idaho.
Impressed, he comes away the new owner of two female llamas. The original plan is to train the llamas so they can be used for Dan’s hunting excursions and, when he’s not using them, make the llamas available to other hunters who might want to rent them for their backcountry trips.
The idea for the day hikes comes next.
When Dan and Cathy and their children, Ashlynn, Chase and Bridger, take the llamas to the nearby Uintas for training runs, they keep running into hikers who make a big fuss about the strange-looking animals. They want to touch them and walk along with them.
The Kendalls respond by expanding their herd to a dozen llamas (and counting), all female.
Next, they secure a special use permit at Wasatch Mountain State Park, allowing their animals to use the trails.
Finally, they post flyers at the park and set up a website (mvpllamas.com).
“Hike with a llama” is born.
The response from the public — both tourists and locals — has been surprisingly steady and positive, says Cathy. “We get a lot of visitors that don’t necessarily want to ride a horse, but they want to go out on the trails.”
Llamas, it turns out, make for very compliant backpacks.
“One person per llama, that’s the fun part,” says Cathy. “People just love them. They’re these quiet, quirky little animals and they walk so well with you, they just follow behind you like a big, well-trained dog. They don’t spit and if you get behind them they don’t kick like a horse.”
The business pays just enough that it “justifies the hobby,” says Dan. “We’re not going to retire off the llama business, let’s put it that way. But it’s fun, it satisfies the greenbelt rules and it gives our kids a job too. We can teach them how to work and they get their own money to spend.”
And for Dan the hunter, he’s got all the help he needs to go where he wants in the backcountry.
“You can take them places you would never take a horse,” he says. “They’ve taken me to places I wouldn’t have gone if I didn’t have them to help me pack out. They carry all my gear and if I get lucky and harvest an animal, they carry the animal out for me.
“They’re more agile than a horse, more athletic and they’re quieter,” he adds, “and they don’t try and crawl in the tent with you like goats.”
