Trailing of the Sheep Festival

Come mid-October, the mountain towns of Ketchum and Hailey, Idaho are the setting for America’s version of The Running of the Bulls – called The Trailing of the Sheep Festival. In keeping with the century - old   tradition,   sheepherders move their flocks from summer pastures in the mountains north of the resort towns of Ketchum and Sun Valley, south through the Wood River Valley to winter desert grazing areas.

The Festival celebrates this tradition and for one afternoon the sheep parade down Main Street Ketchum passed restaurants, boutique shops, coffeehouses and hotels. Traffic halts on city streets and State Highway 75 to allow the 1,700 sheep to complete their annual trek. Residents and visitors come to watch and “trail” (walk) behind the sheep herding them through the fall afternoon reliving the slower pace of a bygone era. In the early 1900s, the Wood River Valley was second only to Sydney, Australia as a sheep center.

Today, the internationally renowned resort community honors this history the second weekend every October, this year October 07 -  9th, 2005. The unique Trailing of the Sheep Festival, recipient of the Governor’s Award for Cultural Heritage Tourism, includes a variety of cultural programs relating to sheep ranching in Idaho and the Scottish, Basque and Peruvian heritage that figured prominently in its history.