Recommendations for trails in UT, CO, northern AZ and northern NM

[Rattlesnakecanyongoats]

Hi all! I’m new here. I keep a few goats in southern CA. We do a lot of trips with our goats in our local backcountry around here. This fall we are embarking on a big journey to visit friends in CO and we want to do some backpacking along the way. We’re looking to stop in southern Utah on the way there, and maybe cut through northern NM and northern AZ on the way home. We have two months for the whole journey. Any recommendations on beautiful goat friendly areas to explore in those areas? I’ve heard Escalante in UT is beautiful and has enough water/feed for goats. Any tips appreciated!

[Nanno]

Escalante is indeed a fantastic destination with packgoats! I've been there many times, and pretty much every hike is amazing. You really can't go wrong. Fall is a great time to go because the weather is usually amazing. What dates were thinking of being there? We plan to be in Escalante at least from Oct. 7-12, and possibly earlier. It would be great to do a hike together if it could work out.

Colorado is also incredible. That's my home state. If you have a chance to go into Lake City, I highly recommend it. Best place in Colorado if you ask my opinion! Although fall can be pretty chilly, and snow can also be as issue depending on how late in the fall you go there. The leaves peak in late September (in the next week or two), and if there is no snow in the forecast you can still hike some of the 14ers and other awesome trails. But do be careful about the weather forecast! Blizzards are very common at high altitude in late September and onwards. Wheeler National Monument is an amazing stop and a great hike with goats. It's between Creede and South Fork.

Make sure you get CVI's for all your goats before you head out cross-country. New Mexico is lovely but they are one of the strictest states when it comes to health certificates. Ask your vet if you need to get a separate certificate for each destination state, or if they can put multiple states on one certificate. We've had some minor headaches with that in the past when we had multiple destination states in one trip, but it's worth getting your ducks in a row just in case you meet "that one guy" who thinks he's Barney Fife.

Best of luck to you! I'll let you know if I think of anything else, and please feel free to ask questions about specific hikes you have in mind. You never know... I might be familiar with one of them.

[Rattlesnakecanyongoats]

Thank you so much for all this info! Our timeline has shifted a bit. My grandfather just passed so we’re going to postpone our trip for a few weeks. We still hope to head to Escalante, maybe more like mid October depending how things go, we’ll see. The rest of the trip will depend on weather… if it’s getting too cold in CO we might turn around early and do another trip closer to home where the weather is milder.

[Nanno]

I'm sorry to hear about your grandfather. It will definitely be getting pretty cold in Colorado by the time you get into late October, but desert areas can be nice to visit during late fall/winter if you don't get too high in elevation, or if you're okay with camping in the cold. The nice thing about hiking in the desert in the winter is there's not usually a lot of snow and even though the temperatures drop a lot at night, it warms up enough during the day to make hiking pleasant. If you come to Colorado in late October you will see a LOT of hunters. I'm not sure about Utah as a hunting state, but here in Colorado we're crawling with them throughout October and November so you're going to see a lot of people, RV's, and ATV's on the trail and you definitely need to wear orange (and make sure your goats wear orange!).