About Us

We are Pamela Tait and Bernie Van Benthem, and we run Pinnacle Peak Llama Ranch in Parks, Arizona.

We were first introduced to llamas in 1985 and 1986 while we were in college. Bernie was attending Arizona State University in Tempe, and Pam was attending the University of Arizona in Tucson. We would visit each other almost every weekend. While most kids in college would go out drinking at the bars on the weekends, we used to like to visit the llama ranch located across from Bernie's parents' house in Tempe.

In 1995, we bought some land way up in north Scottsdale. It was a beautiful 5-acre parcel in an incredible location in the granite boulder mountains with a direct view of Pinnacle Peak. Our parents thought we were nuts moving so far out of town, but we had left the over-crowded master-planned communities of Ahwatukee and welcomed the open space. We designed a beautiful adobe-style house, hired the subcontractors to build it for us, and we moved into the house in 1996.

The native wildlife was spectacular for those first few years. Mule deer were a common sight, horses and cattle roamed over from a nearby ranch - one day we even had a red bull walk down the driveway along with his companion, the grey ox. Yes, OX! Coyotes are commonplace, as are the javelinas, Harris hawks and the majestic Great Horned Owls hooting on the mountain of our backyard. Families of bobcats have been raised there, and we've had the company of several mountain lions as well.

But Scottsdale's slogan is "the West's most western town", and as a young girl I had always dreamed of owning a ranch and raising horses with beautiful green pastures. Our property was zoned "horse property", but when it came right down to it, I knew nothing about horses and wasn't sure I wanted that much work. We'd seen an ad for some alpacas and sent away for some information. When the packet arrived, we decided that spending $25,000 on a pet or two for the front yard wasn't something we were inclined to do. Then we remembered the llamas...

We set about looking for somebody to show us and teach us about llamas and were referred to a lady in Flagstaff. We set up an appointment to go and see the llamas, and on Labor Day morning in 1997 we headed up to the high country of Arizona. It just happened that there had been a baby born at the llama ranch that morning, and we got to hold a 3-hour old cria. I was hooked! Bernie was looking for a couple of unusual pets. But I knew that this was something I'd been waiting to do all my life - dreams of barns and corrals and green pastures filled with horses turned to llamas in the blink of an eye. That evening we arrived home with plans to build a llama barn in our front yard for our 2 newly purchased weanling boys, Paco and Rico.

The Scottsdale barn was designed to look like an extension of the house, and split rail fence was used to form a corral. A month later the boys arrived, and Pinnacle Peak Llama Ranch was born.

The winter of 1998, we purchased our first breeding females. The boys we had bought were not stud quality males, and they were gelded at the age of two. We attended several llama shows, and at the 2000 Maricopa County Fair, I saw a llama who caught my eye waiting to walk into the show ring. I said to the lady leading him, "Wow! That is the nicest llama I have ever seen. Is that a boy or a girl?" She said, "It's a boy, and he's for sale." Fortunately, Bernie agreed that he was the nicest llama we'd ever seen, and Cloud Peak's Kokomo became the first herd sire of Pinnacle Peak Llama Ranch.

In 1999, we bought 10 acres in a little town called Parks, Arizona, which is located about 15 miles west of Flagstaff. Llamas don't prosper in the heat of our deserts, and ours get to spend April through October up in the cool country. Surrounded on 3 sides by the Kaibab National Forest, our privacy and forest accessability is second to none, and our views of the San Francisco Peaks are spectacular.

We have met many wonderful people throughout the llama business and enjoy showing our llamas around the state and region. I was the superintendant of the Maricopa County Fair Copper Classic llama show for 4 years and created a new show, the Grand Canyon Classic, which was held in Flagstaff, Arizona.

We added a new herd sire recently, Cloud Peak's Chilean Outlaw. Outlaw is a full-Chilean Richochet son out of Chilena Catalina, and he placed Top 10 in his class at the 2004 Grand Nationals and Top 10 again in the 2005 Grand Nationals. He has been producing some gorgeous crias for us, especially with our beautiful Kokomo daughters, which we are looking forward to showing.

During the summer of 2007, we moved up to our Parks ranch full-time.


				*Pinnacle Peak Llama Ranch* *About Us*



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