This Goat is actually from the central Cascades, but I figure these bastards are all the same so screw it.

A few weeks ago, while on a climbing trip in the north Cascades, I watched a mountain goat lap up an entire pool of my buddy Greg’s urine. If I have to explain why that’s awesome then this blog isn’t for you. Go back to browsing etsy.

We had just descended after a long climb on South Early Winters Spire, and were sitting around at the base of the wall drinking beer and talking about how our feet hurt from wearing climbing shoes all day, when this scruffy-ass goat walked up all nonchalant. He just stood there chewing grass shoots and ignoring us in much the same way that Mila Kunis ignores all my letters and pictures and offers of sensual, full body massage. I turned to Greg.

“Let’s pound these beers and scare this goat out of the way so we can get out of here,” I said. Then I laughed because that sentence is so rad.

Wikipedia tells me that the North American mountain goat isn’t even a member of the genus Capra, which means it’s not even a real goat. What kind of bullshit is that? These big, fluffy, white bastards are in fact members of the genus Oreamnos, which is not quite as good as Oreo, and probably comes from the Latin for ‘guzzler of piss.’ They traipse around the high country masquerading as goats, operating under the misguided assumption that no one will notice.

Well I’ve noticed, fake goats. I’ve noticed big time.

Under ‘diet,’ wikipedia lists “grasses, herbs, ferns, mosses, lichens, and twigs and leaves from low growing shrubs and conifers of their high-altitude habitat.” It does not list Greg’s pee. But let me tell you, these (fake) goats love Greg’s pee. Love it.

I know because after we’d finished our beers Greg peed all over a large slab of granite, and right after we donned our packs and started walking the (fake) goat made a bee line for the yellow splashings left by Greg’s cascading liquid evacuation. He walked straight over to the pee rock and started lapping that shit up. Furiously. Like a Juggalo horking down Faygo behind an am/pm. We stood and watched, transfixed.

“Look at him,” said Greg, voice softened by child like wonder. “He can’t get enough.

“That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” I agreed, nodding slowly, slack jawed and gaping.

Astoundingly, we had actually poured a small amount of beer on an adjacent rock because we wanted to watch the (fake) goat drink beer, and he completely ignored it in favor of the urine. We were drinking high gravity IPA, which might have been the problem. Perhaps if we had used something closer to urine, such as Milwaukee’s Best Light, the animal might have gone for it. But no. All urine all the time for that particular beast.

Like this except they’re goats.

Now, you might be thinking “mountain goats don’t like pee, they just live in an alpine environment with very little access to sodium and will consume anything salty.” My response is two fold.

Fuck you Captain Kill Joy, no one likes a rationalist. They still drink pee.

Who cares about the particulars behind the (fake) goat’s motivation? It doesn’t matter. What’s important in this scenario is the freedom and ability of every American to piss on rocks and watch (fake) goats drink it. That’s right, you too can travel to a mountainous area where (fake) goats wander free and bearded, and you can entice those (fake) goats into consuming that which you expel.

I’m not talking about flies buzzing around your poop, or ants hauling off your toenail clippings (which I’m pretty sure might be a real thing). I’m talking about a large mammal, a warm blooded, fur growing animal, wantonly lapping up what’s left of all that Yoo-Hoo you drank this morning. What better way to reinforce man’s superiority over the natural world? And in the end, isn’t that what it’s all about?