A two goat minimum.

[Red Baron]

Latest hiking trend is the pack goat

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- There are pack horses, pack mules and pack
llamas. But how about pack goats?

Goats are perhaps the newest trend in hiking and
backpack-carrying animals, and Utah is leading the pack in their
promotion.
In fact, the 2004 Rendezvous for the North American Packgoat
Association will be held this weekend at Sheep Creek Lake, near
Flaming Gorge.

Clay Zimmerman of Tooele is one of the rendezvous organizers,
and he also operates High Uinta Pack Goats, renting goats for
public use. He started using pack goats about 10 years ago and
believes their usage has quadrupled in Utah in that time. There are
at least a dozen active goat packers in Utah, from Logan to St.
George.

"Goats are about the friendliest animal you can get,"
Zimmerman said. "Some goats will even rest their head on your lap.
They like people."

He said you can forgot all those stereotypes about goats being
stubborn, stinky and unmanageable.
Goats are as friendly as dogs, if trained right, and he believes
they make great hiking companions.
"Each goat has his own name and personality," he said of his
personal herd of a dozen animals.
He said goats are mellower than llamas and do not hurt the
environment.

"Goats don't destroy wilderness," Zimmerman said. "They are
environmentally friendly."
Goats browse when they feed, like deer.
"You don't carry food for them," he said. "They get a bite
here and a nibble there."
Zimmerman said they are also loyal animals, though they may
follow other backpacking groups you encounter, if you're not
careful.

Two main disadvantages to goats are that they travel less in a
day than other pack animals and they can't carry as much weight.
Goats can safely carry about one-fourth of their body weight,
and that usually equals 40-60 pounds of gear. From about 5 years of
age on, goats can carry the heavy loads. Goats live 12-15 years and
weigh 180-250 pounds.

For small children or the senior citizen who loves to hike, fish
or hunt but can no longer easily backpack, goats are an option to
lessen human burdens. Ask anyone what the biggest downside to
backpacking is and most will probably single out heavy packs.
Zimmerman said his wife has bad knees, but thanks to goats, she
has been on 100-mile backpacking trips.
And Zimmerman said they can go just about anywhere a human can
go, outside of a cliff. His goats have been atop Utah's highest
summit, Kings Peak, 13,528 feet above sea level. With loose rock
and some scrambling required, the goats had no trouble getting
there. They can go places many other pack animals can't.

Zimmerman has taken his goats up to a 14,000-foot elevation in
the Wind River Range of Wyoming, so altitude doesn't affect them
much, either. They can also traverse snowy terrain.
"No horse or llama has that kind of footing," he said.
How about transportation? Goats easily can be hauled in a small
trailer or a pickup truck. Zimmerman said some people have even
used boxes containing kitty litter in their vans to haul several
goats to trailheads.

They also don't need to be tied up at night in a camp if they
are properly bonded to their human group.
Some forest areas require goats be on leashes. Otherwise,
Zimmerman said he has his goats' leashes tucked in, to be used as
needed.

"Usually, they will never leave your side," he said, lamenting
some of the privacy you may feel like you give away by having these
underrated animals along.
He stressed they cost much less than other pack animals to own
and maintain. He charges about $20 a day to rent his goats, with a
two-goat minimum. Families and Scout groups have used his goats.

Rendezvous events include a service project with the U.S. Forest
Service to improve a trail and training classes on hoof trimming,
saddling and loading.
Zimmerman expects 75 to 100 people to attend the event, the
first time it has been held in Utah during the organization's
six-year existence. Those attending will come from all over the
nation, though the western states are the group's mainstay.

[Game Over]

I been thinking about this lately...

they are way enviro friendly in comparision to other pack animals for damn sure. Aside from thier shit (that is pretty small), they prolly leave less trace than us.

WHOA! he rents em for 20 buck a day. there has been 3 female and 2 male Boar (meat) goats in the paper for weeks, they are there today for $100/offer. I was thinking of getting em for mostly brush/weed control, and maybe some packing if it is possible (if they have good temperment(but what the fuck would I need to pack?) they are suposed to be OK eating too, really low colesterol.

with a few of these things working for you I guess a BC shack would become a little easier of a undertaking.

[zion zig zag]

Pretty neat. But thumbs down that he is taking 75-100 people into an area of the Uintas that I love. That is prolly more people than that area sees in an average month.

[Arty50]

Originally posted by Red Baron
In fact, the 2004 Rendezvous for the North American Packgoat Association will be held this weekend at Sheep Creek Lake, near Flaming Gorge.

Goats, sheep, and flaming...

Remind me to steer clear of this event.

[Spats]

I remember seeing two people in the Sierra wilderness with a pack llama. They were incredibly tired from basically having to pull the llama around everywhere -- evidently it just wouldn't move around on its own no matter what they did. We left them at the trail junction trying to persuade the llama to ascend another ten feet. They were not having fun.

I don't think pack animals of any kind are a good idea in wilderness, because there are already too many people making too heavy an impact in our few remaining wilderness areas, and the last thing we need to do is make them more accessible.

That being said, goats are better than horses, in that they can't carry people on their backs, so there is at least a minimum requirement of being able to physically *walk* in order to access wilderness. So I would support the use of goats and other small pack animals if horses (and mules, and other human carriers) were banned altogether. Goats have a much smaller ecological footprint than horses.

Why am I so anti-horse? Well, anyone who has hiked through endless piles of shit, through trails churned into 6" of sand alternating with exposed rocks and roots, seen and tried to pack out some of the trash and messes left by horse campers who have no wilderness ethics, and watched endless stock trains shuttling huge tent cabins and kitchens in and out of the wilderness for people who can't do without espresso and patio furniture for TWO FREAKING DAYS while hikers are denied permits because "the area is full", well, you know what I mean.

Once in the Sawtooth Wilderness in Idaho, we hiked through a horse hitching area, and an entire 1/3 acre was so completely covered with horse shit that we lost the trail and had to trudge around the shit field for several minutes before finding it again. This was not far from a high alpine lake that everyone depended on as a water source.

Summary: I don't like any pack animals, but would choose goats over horses.