Tent 3, Escalante Canyon Goatpacking Camp, Escalante Canyon, Utah. An overnight stay at the camp is part of a five-day hiking trip with Wind River Pack Goats, which costs $1,290 per person, including meals (307-332-3328; goatpacking.com).

There's only a thin nylon barrier between you and the rugged, striated Navajo sandstone of Utah's Escalante Canyon, part of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument—a 1.7-million-acre expanse of isolated mesas, buttes, valleys, and slender canyons rich with dinosaur and fish fossils. And yes, that's a goat ambling by your tent, but it's not a resident; rather, it's your camping gear's means of conveyance. This month, the outfitter Wind River Pack Goats leads a hiking excursion that snakes along the 85-mile Escalante River. With a companionable goat carrying your pack, you're free to shimmy through the cliffs of the seldom-traveled slot canyons, to decode the ancient petroglyphs etched along the canyon walls by the Anasazi, and to be serenaded by some 200 bird species. There's some serious ground to be covered—you'd better start hoofing it.

Photo: Peter Guttman