While rounding a corner of the Needles Highway in Custer State Park, we saw a couple of cars pulled over in the opposite direction. A man approached, waving his arms, signalling us to stop.

The Needles Highway has two narrow tunnels that allow only a single vehicle through at a time and knowing I was approaching one, I assumed that the man's efforts were one of coordinating traffic. When he approached the car, he said that there was a family of 'mountain sheep' in the road just around the corner. We've seen Bighorn Sheep before, but that alone would have had me exiting my car quickly grabbing for the camera. When I walked around the bend with camera in hand, I saw that it was a family of mountain goat, not sheep - a ram, a ewe and two kids.

Previously, the closest Sheryl and I have seen a mountain goat was from a distance of about a quarter mile, on the side of a sheer cliff at Lake Louise in Banff National Park.

These four were not only grazing with relative disregard to the crowd that was gathering, but they interacted as if they were alone on the other side of the mountain. They were beautiful, very healthy looking animals and offered us a wildlife viewing experience that's somewhat rare.

Canon EOS 5D, Canon 100-400mm f/4.5/5.6L IS @ 400mm with Canon 1.4X Teleconverter III - effective focal length - 560mm, 1/250 sec @f/8, ISO equiv 800, Handheld - image stabilized