Some animals choose to live in environments that most species find completely inhospitable. In the case of these mountain goats – a term used loosely here to include Rocky Mountain Goats, Ibex, and other species of wild goats – climbing near-vertical cliffs suspended high above the ground is just part of daily life…
These goats seek salt deposits in the rock walls.
This little goat showed off its rock-climbing skills when it hung out on a vertical wall in India – a well known wall known as Arguna’s Penance:
Here is a photo of the wall, to give you a sense of the bigger picture:
Watch these Alpine Ibex as they hang out on a nearly vertical incline on an Italian dam.
And leap from peak to peak:
Mount Evans, Colorado is the highest auto road in the United States. However, goats were traversing this high-altitude road long before the advent of cars. Watch these goats display their keen ability to climb vertical walls:
Watch a goat narrowly escape an attack from a Snow Leopard, in one of the only known recordings of a snow leopard hunting in the Himalayas:
