Distinctly Montana Magazine

study) they've been the subject of repeated research projects, and we'd been as- sured we'd have no trouble seeing them. We didn't. Sad to say, neither did the llamas. We'd stopped for a snack-and-water break about three quarters of the way to the pass when Miles and Zerc, the two lead llamas, became intent on a distant white object high on the slope above us. Zerc suddenly let loose with the llama's alarm call, a sound much like a turkey would make if it weighed about 400 pounds. It was a sound so loud that you don't want to be standing directly by the llama's mouth (as Marsha was) when he makes it. The goat eventually disappeared behind a low ridge, so we stowed our water bottles and headed on up the trail. I was leading Miles. Marsha was right behind me with Zerc, followed by Wendy leading Pinball and Petey strung together. A minute later, I led Miles around a sharp turn in the trail and was suddenly confronted with a nanny and kid goat only 20 feet away. Miles bolted in a panic, leav- ing the trail and scrambling back downhill across a steep rocky meadow, dragging panniers, packs, and—until I had the good sense to let go of his rope—me. Though I was too busy to notice, Zerc had done the same thing, but Marsha had the good sense to let go right away. At first I feared that the llamas were planning to retreat way down the mountain. I was at least grateful that this encounter hadn't happened on one of the narrow places where the only choices were back down the trail or over the edge. But we soon realized that all they wanted to do was get together. As soon as all four were standing side by side facing the perceived threat, they were, well, perhaps not okay but at least willing to stand still. It took a while to resolve this situation. We had to hold the llama's reins very tight while the two goats bypassed us by skirting across another meadow so they could move down the trail, but eventually we were able to restore Miles's panniers, make sure none of us had broken anything (Miles was only bleeding a little from one leg, and my twisted ankle hardly hurt at all), and move on. From then on, for the next couple days, whenever we were hiking a steep, winding trail, I could look back and see all four llamas craning their necks as far out to one side as pos- sible, to see what sort of bizarre surprise we might spring on them next. Much more than the grizzly bear, the mountain goat has been the traditional symbol of Glacier National Park. The Great Northern Railway, which had so much to do with the opening of Glacier to visitors in its early years, adopted the goat as its symbol, and a more admirable one is hard to imagine. Goats are easily seen from a number of road- side locations, and are great fun to watch with binoculars or spotting scopes. Once you see them in action on a steep mountainside (rather than slurping up tasty radiator antifreeze in the parking lot at Logan Pass), you'll imme- diately appreciate why they inspire such awe. A band of goats picking its way across some nearly sheer cliff face can inspire as much disbelief as empathetic nervousness. In his fascinating book A Beast the Color of Winter: The Mountain Goat Observed (1983), ecologist Douglas Chadwick described how the goat's exceptional traction and tremendous chest and shoulder muscles allow it to move around: I have seen mountain goats perform what amounted to one-handed chin-ups. Having only a scrap of momentum behind them they reached out, hooked one hoof on an overhead shelf, and hauled themselves up by it alone. So, while it's wonderful to see one along a road, the real treat is seeing one, even at a great distance, on one of the high steep places they make their home. A two-thousand-foot pass isn't that hard a climb if a llama is carrying all your gear, and we enjoyed a leisurely lunch by the stone shelter house at Gunsight Pass, let- ting the stiff breeze dry us off as we absorbed both the view and the idea of being on the Continental Divide. From now on, all the water we saw would be draining to the Flathead Valley, the Columbia River, and the Pacific Ocean. Looking west down from the pass, we could see our next destination, Lake Ellen Wilson, about a thousand feet lower and a couple of miles by trail away. All the way down, the llamas, especially Zerc, scanned the nearby hillsides nervously. Zerc occasionally blasted another alarm call into Marsha's ear just to make sure we didn't spend too much time stopping to enjoy the long, flower- 20 DISTINCTLY MONTANA • SPRING 2012

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