Arizona - October 2009 - Saguaro National Park

While the rest of us decided to turn back and return to the car, Mr Moo set off by himself determined to reach the summit of Wasson Peak.

After stopping to have something to eat, I think we all could have pushed on and made the summit, but we decided it just wasn't worth the risk of someone getting really sick from heat stroke. I was very concerned about him going off by himself, but he was determined and assured me he would be fine. The trail was wide and really well maintained. We had excellent mobile service in the area, even on the mountain, so he could call for help if necessary. And, after watching him run up the mountains at Glacier NP, we've recently confirmed he is genetically half mountain goat. We also were able to stay in direct communication with him while he made his way up the rest of the trail using the walkie talkie feature on our GPSr units.

We stayed at our lunch spot for a while to track his progress. Using the 12x zoom on mine and the 12 billion x zoom on my brother-in-law's new camera, we were even able to watch him climb for a good portion of it.