SAD NEWS: Porteus died in Summer 2010. We will miss him greatly. His offspring will have a lasting impact on our herd for years to come. We'll leave his listing up as a lasting tribute to this extraordinary stud. We are pleased to announce our partnership with Dusty Creek and Reiling Ranch in ownership of this extraordinary herdsire. He is one of the most outstanding colored herdsires we have ever seen. If your goal is to breed to the ULTIMATE™, please consider Porteus. We cannot describe him better than Snowmass Alpacas so here are their words: "Named after the best Port we have ever tasted… And a toast to the very best XXXTREME production son ever to be born. The entire Alpaca breeding world knows who Snowmass XXXtreme is after taking herdsire of the year 2 years running 2006 & 2007. This particular son, Snowmass Porteus was the Ultimate reason why. Porteus in our opinion is the ULTIMATE™ in COLORED ALPACA production and why he has been staged in the Snowmass publication of The Making of Champions Part II as having the ultimate colored alpaca fleece.(A LONG, FINE, XXXtremely BRIGHT, staple and incredibly consistent through the entire body, from head to chest to toe) Snowmass Porteus simply stated has the “LOOK”, strong, upstanding, and extremely well balanced in his frame added to his ELITE FIBER he has INCREDIBLE POTENTIAL to raise the bar in ALPACA COLOR FIBER. Snowmass Porteus, as well his sire, has taken our COLOR breeding program to the top level of SUPERIORITY equal to the most ELITE whites. Porteus was shown at the highest level show, The Futurity, and took first place both as a Juvenile and Yearling and moved victoriously into the CHAMPION CIRCLE. Many Juveniles place well the first year but the real test is if they can stand in the same position the next year. His 1st yr AFD of 15.1 and 2nd year of 16.5. HE IS THE ULTIMATE™ of Snowmass XXXtreme’s production and he will take your breeding program to the highest levels of excellence because that’s exactly what these genetics have done for us!"

We are pleased to welcome Soleado's Dulcinea de la Noche to our foundation herd of elite females. Our thanks to Judith Sims-Barlow of Spanish Peaks Alpacas and Bob and Regina Dart of Llano Soleado Alpacas for making our acquisition of Dulci possible. We saw Dulci at the TxOLAN show in 2009 where she decisively won first place in a large, competitive class. We then inspected her after her class and saw exactly what the judge saw in her. Dulcinea is a daughter of Snowmass Andean Night, one of the finest sons of the legendary Snowmass Andean Bronze. Andean Night's offspring have been consistently outstanding. Dulci is no exception. While we were clearly drawn to the Andean Night genetics, it was also important to us that her dam is a daughter of PHAR Online, an outstanding male now standing stud at Abenaki Alpacas. Her dam's show record includes two reserve championships (TxOLAN and Oklahoma in 2004). We liked the combination of genetics in Dulci and we liked her outstanding fleece and conformation. Most importantly, we liked Dulci as a breeding partner for our newest and Ultimate herdsire, Snowmass Porteus. We were fortunate to get a beautiful daughter from this pairing before Porteus' untimely death. We deeply treasure Blue Gate Dulce de Leche. She gave a second daughter, Blue Gate Minerva, sired by Snowmass Matrix Magic. We were curious about breeding Albus to color, so we paired Albus with some of our finer dark color females. On paper, pairing the Snowmass Andean night line with Albus looks very promising. The result was a gorgeous beige female, Blue Gate Evita. Evita has striking conformation and silky, fine fleece. This is a pairing we will definitely repeat. Dulcinea re-bred and is due Spring '20.

NEWS: SKIN BIOPSY RESULTS COMPLETE Dr. Evans "Albus highest S/P ratio ever tested to date" He has an S/P Ratio of 21.25! We are pleased to announce our partnership with our friends Joanna and Rob Stephens of RobAsia Alpacas. We share ownership is a fantastic young male with amazing potential - RobAsia's Albus. We have been very selective in purchasing breeding males for our herd. For us to purchase a white male meant he had to meet and exceed any of all of our expectations for powerful genetics, excellent fleece characteristics proven with hard data, and great conformational traits. We studied him on paper, looked and fleece samples, and then traveled to Wisconsin to see him in the flesh. We made our decision with no hesitation. Genetics: Albus is sired by Snowmass Quechua's Quest. Quest is an amazing combination of two powerhouse lines in the Snowmass herd, Snowmass Star Quest (Augusto line) and Snowmass Quechua (multiple herdsire of the year). Albus' dam brings just as much to the table with her Snowmass Invincble and Accoyo Caligula in her portfolio. A secret ingredient in Albus is the appearance of arguably, the most influential female in the Snowmass herd, Snowmass Maree Love on both the top and bottom of Albus' pedigree. Fleece: Beautiful! We studied his fleece samples, saw his show fleece from his last shearing, and studied his fleece on body. The hand on Albus' fleece is among the best we have touched. The character and crimp in the fleece is consistent from top of his head to his tail. Check out fiber stats. Awesome histogram on third shearing! Conformation: Albus is upright, straight, and demonstrates strong bone structure. His photos tell the story. Albus now has cria on the ground with our partner farm in Wisconsin - they are reportedly the best cria born at RobAsia. We have confirmed pregnancies here in Texas with the first cria due in early November. He is standing at Blue Gate from November 2015 until May 2016. Limited outside breedings to approved females. Females confirmed bred to Albus available for sale.