STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
National Geographic just named it one of the “Seven Best Fall Festivals in the United States,” along with such festivals as San Antonio’s two-day Meuertos Fest.
And thousands of people have heeded the call, turning out for this weekend’s 23rd annual Trailing of the Sheep Festival.
On Friday hundreds of people moved like amoebas up and down Ketchum’s Main Street, even ducking into Zions Bank at one point as they tried 15 different ways of utilizing lamb from Chris Koetke’s shockingly orange but wildly flavorful Adana kebobs at the new Sun Valley Culinary Institute to The Sawtooth Club’s popular Idaho Lamb Shepherd’s Pie.
The event featured For the Love of Lamb Passports modelled after regular passports in a reworked event that erased the frustrations of last year when vendors ran out of food
Once he’d finished serving up his lamb tapas, Koetke showed up at the Sheep Tales Gathering across the street where he told the story of his mother washing the sand off 30 pounds of fresh asparagus in the wash machine.
Come Saturday hundreds of people filled Roberta McKercher Park in Hailey watching Basque dancers duck under their green, red and white flag, and perusing pillows and other items made of sheep, alpaca and even dog and guinea pig hair.
By afternoon out-of-state visitors had stuck pins in every state but Hawaii and Mississippi, and world travelers had stuck pins in such - countries as India, South Africa, Argentina and Chile.
“We’ve been threatening to come for years,” said one couple from Notus, Idaho, “But the Trailing always conflicted with the opening of hunting season. We decided this year: We’re going for it!”