Basque immigrants from the Pyrenees mountains of France and Spain came to California during the Gold Rush and found supplying miners with lamb and wool more profitable than mining for gold. Young Basque men followed sheep bands into the Sierras for summer grazing, using pack mules to carry supplies. In the meadows of the Eastern Sierra, they lived in tents, usually set up in aspen groves, and sometimes built stone ovens for baking bread. A camp tender brought supplies to the herder every three to eight days. Later, wooden wagons gave more protection from the weather than tents and remained in use until the 1960s, when used travel trailers replaced them. For thousands of young Basque immigrants, work in California sheep camps was a rite of passage and an entry point into their new country, and though the work was difficult, sometimes dangerous, and very lonely, many old-timers remembered it as the best time of their lives.