Pack goats in training

 Joe told me he wanted to go backpacking to Navajo Lake up near Telluride. Since we are doing a longer backpacking trip next month at Maroon Bells, we thought it might help the boys to have a shorter backpacking trip as practice. 

We have goats at our property at Wild Turkey Canyon, to keep our agricultural exemption. Several of those goats were purchased for the purpose of also becoming pack goats. Twister and Ozay are Alpine Goats, which are the best type of pack Goats. they are just six months old, so not old enough to actually carry anything. Rico is a Nubian goat that was originally purchased to become a pack goat as well. However, Rico is the biggest pain in the butt! He is so loud! He screams the whole 2 hour drive, and anytime you are more than 5 feet away from him on the trail. It does not even matter if he’s the one that walked away from you in the first place! He just screams and screams and screams. 

Although none of them actually packed any of our stuff, they were our pack goats in training this weekend. They actually are really good about following us on the hike, unless we happen to be walking uphill, and some other hikers are walking downhill. At that point, they lose all loyalty to us and were ready to abandon us for just about anybody. I guess that’s something we’ll have to work on! 

We hiked up 5 miles along some beautiful mountain ranges, meadows, waterfalls, and creeks. The goats snacked on lots of dandelions. Miles and Chase did awesome! I can really tell the difference between now and even a year ago when it comes to hiking abilities. 

My friend Kate and her dog Arkty came along for the hike. Arkty is not a fan of our goats. He was hypnotized and fixated on them at all times, and would constantly lunge at them. Nothing seemed to be working. We ended up just hiking separately most of the way after Arkty pulled Miles to the ground. It wasn’t until later in the evening, when we realized that the rubber coverings on the shock collar were actually still on the collar! And they have owned this collar for months and months… so anytime Kate thought she had buzzed Arkty’s, it had done absolutely nothing. After a quick lesson with the actual shock collar, Arkty was less enticed by the Goats and we were able to finish the evening on happier terms.

Once we got to the final destination of Navajo Lake, Chase, unfortunately realized he had lost his fishing pole and immediately turned around with Joe to go look for it. Miles did not waste any time and started fishing right away. Both of them caught several trout. Besides the annoying mosquitoes that chased us to bed by 8 PM, we had a lovely evening in the mountains.

I was a little bit stressed about the goat being there, since we did not have a dog with us to protect them. (Kate and Arkty sleep on the “lower level” (aka different campsite) The goats were just tied up on a line 15 feet away from our tent. But if a hungry bear would’ve happened on our camp, there’s nothing we could’ve done to save them. Luckily, all my worry was for nothing, and we spent the next day fishing and reading and sleeping before heading back down the mountain.