Today January 28th 2019 me and my wife met about twenty bighorns around South Lykken Trail, less than a week after we saw several bighorn sheep close to an old water reservoir above Palm Springs’ Mesa area. There were separate packs of bighorns both above and below the trail just about the middle of the trail. One lady we met on the trail was after meeting us on the trail only ten yards away of a couple of big rams walking towards here – and she had a small dog with her! So it seems these bighorns are not very afraid of humans of even dogs, but I would advise to keep your dog on a leach to avoid any problems.
We tried to count the number of the bighorns and saw at least three different packs of them: eight rams below the trail and two packs of six above the trail, mostly rams but also a female bighorn with her small lamb. Going down we met a guy who said a lady friend yesterday had counted 34 bighorn sheep along this trail – we only covered a small portion of it.
Unfortunately I did not have a proper camera with me but from the attached smartphone photo you may see how close to Mesa area houses the rams were. Most probably they will stay there longer as their food supply
seems very good here because of January rains.
