The other day when we were up on Mt. Evans investigating why Mountain Goats didn’t get struck by lightning we observed other baffling but explainable weather phenomenon.

Fog for one. Fog is a condition where at one moment you can see clearly as far as you want to, and the next, the air changes to a semi-solid, opaque substance that gets all around you and fogs up your glasses so you can’t see where you’re going and you stumble over the rocks and ding up your lens hood. It also makes it scary to drive when you can not see your hand in front of your face and you have drop-offs of hundreds of feet just a foot away from your wheels. Fortunately we had an intern that we made walk in front of the vehicle tapping the roadway with a stick to determine whether it was solid or not. It, the intern, also made foghorn noises at the top of his voice to warn other fools that we were on the way down. As we had only one intern on this trip we couldn’t afford to lose it so we tied a rope around him and fastened it to the bumper on the jeep and whenever he would wander off the road we could feel the rope jerk and could stop and haul him up. His foghorn noises were always noticeably louder after we hauled him up. That made us feel a little more confident and we would be nudging him forward with the front of the car as we felt better about our chances.

When the fog arrives at Mt. Evans there’s none of this “entering in on little cat feet” stuff.  No way Jose, It slams in with all the force of Bill Clinton pushing his way to the front of the line at McDonald’s. One moment you’re fat dumb and happy looking at the wonders of a clear mountain day, the next you’re wet, cold and lost in the wilderness. But that is life in the mountains, always extreme but always exciting.

The question at hand though, was, How do animals, especially Mountain Goats, handle the fog. What do they do. They don’t have running lights or any kind of internal radar our instruments could pick up. How do they manage to move around in the fog without going over the edge and falling for two days. It seemed a mystery tailor-made for The Institute.

As we were frozen in place by the fog and terminal fear we had time to closely observe the animals and found the most amazing fact. The pure white coats of the mountain goats acted as a solar collector and stored up energy to be released on their command whenever they needed it. This ability to release an energy force acted as a “Fog Dispersal Device” and would dissipate the fog for a distance of approximately three or four feet in all directions allowing them to maneuver about the mountain as if they had good sense. We stuck close to them and it saved our lives as we heard the screams of those not so lucky as they plummeted past on their way to oblivion. Eventually this pair of mountain goats, a mother and her kid, led us back to the parking lot where they happily licked our Jeep’s tires for the salt remaining on them. It seemed a small price to pay for our safe return.

If you look closely at the image above you will notice that the fog around them is dispersed to a distance of several feet allowing them to comfortably forage as they slowly wended their way back to the parking lot. This ability is what keeps the mountain goats fed and safe as they wander around places that are extremely hazardous to humans. The glow they emit is subtle but effective. As the fog would ebb and flow you could see other little bubbles of light, sort of like fireflies, blinking on and off as various small groups moved around the mountain completing their daily chores.

There must be some expenditure of energy to produce this phenomenon as they didn’t keep the lights on constantly. Maybe they were part of some larger co-op that charged them according to the power they used. Or it worked like your cell phone and if they weren’t careful they’d zero out and be without lights just when they needed them most and they’d be stuck in place until the sun appeared again and they could recharge. We saw evidence of rationing this ability as you can see in the image below.

Here is a goat with the Fog Dispersal Device turned off. Notice that there is no glow around it and the fog has completely encased it. This goat is here for the duration if he squandered his usage. It could be that he’s also eaten his fill and is using this down time to catch up on things. Check his email, have a latte, or just people watch. Whatever the reason it clearly shows lights on, lights off, and although we need more time to study all the ramifications of this ability I believe we have pretty much figured it out.

As you can tell by the fact of this posting we made it down the mountain safely although our intern’s hair turned white. We could laugh about it as we applied a natural herb salve to his rope burns, and decided we would schedule another trip to observe this phenomenon more closely the next time fog was scheduled. We would bring more interns too.