We would fill the pack bags with snow and carry it back to town to make ice cream. But it is sheep and cattle that brought most people to the Raft River Mountains' foothills. And that's what keeps them there, with 2,906 cows and 957 sheep grazing this section of the Sawtooth National Forest annually. Wayne Pugsley's grandparents were devastated in the 1940s when one lightning strike killed 900 sheep. Bereft of trees high up, over 9,000 feet and with a plateau-like top, the Raft Rivers are a lightning beacon.
Livestock is killed every year.
When their fleece gets wet, lightning travels through them as if they are a conductor. The 900 dead sheep were not a total loss. If it's not livestock that provides a livelihood around these mountains, then it is mining. In the beginning, the rocks of the Raft Rivers were thick layers of marine sandstone, shale, and limestone sitting atop 2,500-million year old granite. Everything was uplifted, eroded, and submerged beneath a shallow sea.