It’s Sheep Crossing Day in Boise and I’m So There For It
Welcome to an Idaho thing
It’s spring, and the sheep are on the move
Not like it’s all their idea, of course. Sheep and ideas are generally acknowledged to be strangers to one another.
But for almost 140 years, sheep have been making their seasonal, guided migrations here in Idaho.
It happens twice a year. In spring, ranchers move their herds from their winter pastures to their summer grazing grounds in higher elevations of the Boise National Forest.
The wooly critters will spend weeks on the journey, closely guarded by watchful shepherds both human and canine as they munch their way across sagebrush-studded foothills and up into the Wood River Valley.
When there’s a highway in their path, sheep get the right of way. Roadways are cordoned off, traffic stops, and first responders are on hand to make sure the herd makes its way safely across the road.
In the fall, they head back down.
That’s a huge deal in Ketchum, Idaho, the picturesque town near Sun Valley (also famed for being where Papa Hemingway died, but that’s another story).
