[coldrain108]

This guy has been pumping iron...or taking steroids

[DWB27]

I recall this post with someone describing goat harassment at Dee Dee Lakes near McAlester Mtn in NCNP. When I was hiking up to McAlester Pass on the Rainbow Creek Trail in 2014 I recall crossing paths with an older fellow who was coming out of Dee Dee Lakes and said a goat kept him awake all night. Note to self. They do love your sweat and pee! I was up at Upper Ice Lake in GPW and while swimming in the pond just below the lake a big goat wandered right up to us. We never felt threatened but definitely amazed. He walked right by us and snacked on some plants by the waterfall right next to the person in this photo. That was 1987 so no digi photos... Respect the wild and it will respect you. Blue Lake is so overcrowded, maybe the goat just wanted its place back!

[RumiDude]

I have had positive and negative experiences with the goats in ONP and in the Cascades. One thing I realized was that one negative encounter generally outweighs a hundred positive encounters. And by positive encounter I mean when goats basically completely ignore. But when goats follow people, come into camp, etc., that is a negative encounter. And the reason the goats do this is that they are seeking salts and/or food from humans. That is the difference between habitualized to humans and foo/salt conditioned to humans. Rumi

[zimmertr]

In July we were woken in our tent at about 7AM to the noise of a herd of goats galloping through our campsite and a baby SCREAMING as loud as he could. I popped my head out to confirm it was a goat and not like... a deer that was just taken by a cougar and found that at least a dozen had swarmed our campsite. Someone must have peed near where we pitched our tent. It was just off the trail. We got up and tried to shoo them away but it was an exercise in futility. So we had to spend the next 30 minutes trying to break down camp as efficiently as possible while simultaneously not turning our backs on any of the billies. So if you're wondering what it's like to hang out with a bunch of mountain goats... it's a little something like this.

Dangerous? Questionable. Stubborn? Extremely.

[Chief Joseph]

Had a momma and youngster hanging around up above Dagger lake. I made sure that they had plenty of salt, I was downing Gatoraide and peeing on rocks.

[theguyfrombend]

Saw this guy at Cat Lake a few years back. Probably 15 feet away at that point. He had come down a ridge straight for our camp, but never really threatened us.

[adamschneider]

I hiked up to Twin Lakes in the Elkhorn Mountains (NE Oregon) this past July; it's a well-known mountain goat spot. When my friend and I got to Lower Twin Lake, a woman who was camping there asked us to stand guard over her campsite while she went to answer nature's call. Her friend was off somewhere else fishing, and she said that if she left her camp unattended, the goats would come in and try to lick/eat her sweaty gear.

Look at them trying to act all innocent...

[Bowregard]

Regarding the goats from ONP: We visited ONP a number of times before they started removing the goats and I was blissfully unaware of aggressive goat behavior there (and we had multiple instances where we walked closely past goat groups without incident). I had no reason to believe the ONP goats to be more aggressive than those in the Cascades until I started reading posts about it here. I post this not to question those who have experienced aggressive ONP goat behavior (I do believe their stories) but to put it in perspective for those worried about transplanted goats in the Cascades. When it comes right down to it I suspect the statistics show very low incidence of injury between goats and humans in the state over the years even in ONP.

[Foist]

I haven't actually encountered any goats at all in quite some time -- I think several years. Despite going to some seemingly goat-happy terrain. Is the population going down? On the other hand, the amount of hiking I've been able to do the last couple summers has also dwindled, so maybe that's the main thing...