In 1965, I was working for an outfit that took teenagers into Yellowstone Park on wilderness pack trips. We packed about 15 mules to carry the gear necessary for two weeks outdoors for between 12 and 20 campers and staff. All of the mules were mothered up to a bell mare and we ran them all loose. There are many stories I can tell about this lash up but right now I want to focus on a little mule named Alicran who carried the eggs and the flour.

Mules come in various sizes and the loads they carried were based on the mule’s size and temperament.

For example, Jake was what was called a “gun mule” because he was the kind that had been bred to be able to carry big guns in the world wars. He was coal black, very big, might have weighed 1,000 pounds, and nothing ever bothered him. He, and the other two like him, could carry 200 pounds of meat in cooler packs all day.

Snake was a medium size mule, brindle in color, and he might bite or kick you on any given day. As long as you had an apple in your hand, you could catch Snake anytime. He carried canned goods and kitchen packs, and he never hit a tree or a rock with his pack.

Alicran was a little tan mule with a temperament like a Labrador. She carried the eggs and flour, along with a top pack of bedrolls and personal things like cameras and the radio. She carried the fragile things we did not want to break or lose. She was always around camp, easy to catch and load, and she never complained.

When we packed Alicran, we loaded dozens of eggs layered into the pancake flour in big 5-gallon tin cans, so the eggs did not get broken. She would stand quietly as we put the cans in her paniers, and campers might come up and feed her leftover pancakes as she stood there.  

On this day Alicran was almost fully packed. The eggs and flour were in the paniers hanging on her pack saddle, and she was standing there almost asleep when the cook walked by with his hands full of iron skillets and the big coffee pot.

And then he stubbed his toe on a pine tree root.

He dropped all that metal as he started swearing and waving his arms, desperately trying to get his balance. None of that worked, and he crashed to the ground in a cacophony of sound with flailing arms and legs.

Now, in your mind’s eye, just picture this moment in slow motion.

The cook flung pots and a coffee pot in a widening pattern as he fell. He started yelling, waving his arms and falling, and resembled a mule eating monster.

Alicran opened her eyes and woke up to see this mule-eating monster crashing towards her.

The skillets and coffee pot hit the ground and bounced off trees, making a terrific racket and Alicran believed she was under attack. At that moment a bear might have been less alarming.

Alicran’s head popped up, she dropped about 6 inches as she tensed all of her muscles, and then she took off running into the big open meadow next to camp.

After about three jumps, the lids came off the flour tins, and flour began streaming in big, billowing clouds from both sides of the packs. Alicran decided she needed to get rid of those smoking packs and began bucking. This sent more flour into the air, and eggs began to launch and land breaking on her head, pack, and rump.

It was at this point the park ranger rode into camp, stopped next to Jack, the lead packer, and with a small smile asked, “Do you have a permit for that smoking mule?”

Finally, Alicran ran out of flour and eggs, and got tired and stopped. Her eyes were big, and she was loudly blowing breath out both nostrils like a steam engine.  After a few moments she sauntered back into camp, took a pancake from a camper, and we started cleaning her up and repacking what was left.

A rider took Alicran out to the trailhead to get more flour and eggs, and the rest of the trip went smoothly. For the rest of the summer, we received snide comments from other packers asking if one of our mules had been on fire.