Five new mules at Olympic National Park in Washington State are ready for the busy tourist season. Murl, Cutti, Pip, Checkers, and Gopher join the park’s large working mule herd. Mules have helped maintain the trails in national parks since the early 1900s, and they continue to help monitor Olympic’s one million acres, 600 miles of trails, and 64 trailheads.
Murl, Cutti, Pip, Checkers, and Gopher were named by the park staff and are a nod to the different native plants and animals found at the national park. The mules help trail crews in more wild areas of the park.
Mules are the result of interbreeding between a male donkey (Equus asinus) and a female horse (Equus caballus). Thanks to their strength, agility, and endurance, they are the perfect pack animal, according to Washington’s National Park Fund. The park’s over two dozen mules each weigh about 1,000 pounds and can haul roughly 20 percent of their body weight. They carry everything from trail maintenance gear to construction materials and research equipment during their working season—April through October. They will even support the park’s search and rescue teams, safely evacuating any injured hikers out of the wilderness.
When a new mule arrives at the park, they spend time next to older and more experienced mules to learn the ropes. They are housed in a corral in the Elwha River valley during their working season and head out to their winter pasture in Sequim for a five-month break.
To help introduce the mule team to the greater public, Olympic National Park featured a Mule of the Month last year. Previous winners include a spirited and quick “sports-model” mule named RainCloud and Daisy, who is dubbed a “magnificent matriarch.”
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