High Sierra Topix

John Mionczynski worked in Wyoming with the task of observing and recording a band of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. He had a good deal of equipment to carry into the high mountains, including a big radio receiver to follow the radio collared sheep. He tried horses and then mules to follow the sheep into the high wild terrain. He could not get near the area where the sheep lived. Stuck with this dilemma, he trained his pet wether (castrated male goat) to wear a modified mule cross buck and off into the rugged slippery upper reaches they went; the goat’s presence did not alarm the wild sheep. He ultimately wrote a book called The Pack Goat and is considered the father of American goat packing.


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An Internet search brings up examples of microbial infection between domestic goats and bighorn sheep. For this reason alone I'm not a big fan of domestic goats in the wild.

Tom_H wrote:they'll have robots to carry your pack and probably robotic power assist devices to support and give a bit of extra power output for the knees and hips.

They already do: HULC exoskeleton, made in Berkeley.

The guy who got me hooked on trail work would pack beer, steak, salad, & tools into the wilderness on goats to support trail crews. The goats were easy to get along with - better behaved than all the dogs and some of the hikers. I did maybe a dozen trips with them.

The goats were good for about 40 lbs each on a good day, but slow way down in heat. They are super low maintenance on a trip, but their owner has to saddle them up and go on long walks a couple times a week. They are getting old now and some have been retired or can't carry loads. He's had one drop dead on the trail and one crawled off injured and was lost in the woods for 3 weeks. Bears and cougars avoid them, surprisingly.

They were really cool on the trail, but they'd be too much work for me to add to my normal routine.

sekihiker wrote:Jesse, the kid goat, became a pet to one of the scouts. Needless to say, there was a little more meat for each of us at the feast. After the NPS banned the troop from taking a goat, they took pigeons. No, not to eat, but as a primitive version of SPOT!

Now THAT is cool!