Peninsular Bighorn Ram demonstrating his rock climbing technique on a near vertical cliff. The rear hooves are in the air! Photo by TradClimber on 8/6/09 in a remote area of the Santa Rosa Mountains.

Nice photo TradClimber. How close are you from these bighorns when you're shooting?
I spied a big ram this morning on an all day hike up at Canyonlands. Big set of horns but he was a good 100 yds. from me. I could only watch through binoculars.

yuccahead, thank you. - Usually 30 to 100 feet. If I'm lucky, 15 to 30. One time a big ram approach me to within 6 feet. They generally accept my presence after a while if I present myself properly. You must let them approach you. You cannot approach them. They are a better and much faster climber than myself. I go in along for 3 or 4 days at a time in mid summer and play the waiting game. I've shot more than a thousand photos of Peninsular Bighorns this year along.

Here's a close encounter from a couple years ago.

Here's another photo of the same ram from about 25-30 feet away. He was very friendly and not at all afraid of me. He stayed close to me for more than an hour.

WOW!! That's Close!

TradClimber, those are really great photos. I have to admit to being ignorant as to the "Peninsular" designation so I did some Googling and found out they are on the federal endangered list and their habitat is shrinking as well. You're very fortunate to be able to get close to these magnificent animals.

Rock climbing 101

Photo by TradClimber on 8/2/08 in a remote area of the Santa Rosa Mountains.

Extreme climbing

Photo by TradClimber on 8/2/08 in a remote area of the Santa Rosa Mountains.

TradClimber