We arrived just before sunrise in the east valley on the far side of Mesa for a special event that once it gets going, there’s no stopping it.

This is a scene from the old west and one that may not play much longer. The Dobson family are ranchers whose name is familiar to almost everyone living in the Mesa area – think Dobson Road. Sheepherding has been going on here in the desert southwest since the 1870s. The Dobson family arrived in the 1880s but it wasn’t until 1929 that their sheep company would get started.

The trail they are using today to drive the sheep north into the cooler high-country has been in use since 1916, it is called the Heber-Reno Sheep Trail Driveway. Dwayne Dobson, now 72 and grandson of the man who established this family tradition, will soon be retiring from organizing the sheep drive, and without a family member interested in continuing the practice, this could very well have been the last of the sheep drives.

A tradition is coming to an end and we had the opportunity to have witnessed it at least once in our lifetimes.