SANTA CRUZ - The bearded brigade assembles at the canyon's rim and casts their collective gaze below, surveying the steep and rugged terrain through slitted eyes before committing to a line of attack.
Nearly 200 goats were deployed to the back nine at Pasatiempo Golf Club last week, using their cloven hooves to traverse the surrounding canyons in an operation dubbed Landscape Goat.
The cloven-hoofed calvary is expected to be stationed at the 18-hole championship course for 6-10 weeks, spending their days grazing in areas so overgrown with weeds, vines and plants that neither man nor machine can tackle.
"I've been looking at old photographs (from the 1920s and 1930s) of the property over the past two-and-a-half, almost three years that I've been here, and the ruggedness of this area, especially on the back nine, was pretty extreme ... The goal is to get back to that," said Paul Chojnacky, the golf course's superintendent.
He added that in the short time the goats have been grazing, they've cut down so much of the overgrowth that the individual peaks on the hills now can be seen as they once stood in those historical pictures.