2015 Goat Hunt Story

[untilthelastbeat]

So this is the story of my first goat hunt and first ever mountain hunt. I'm going to try to do the play by play with pics so bear with me as I havnt had much luck with that in the past.

So this hunt starts in august when me and my hunting parter kyle decided to start scouting my area. We had done alot of research and got some great advice from some hbc members and it was finally time to get Into the mountains. We hit the road early and arrived at the fsr around 9am. As soon as we started our drive in we could instantly see rocky peaks and crags that looked like prime goat country. We couldn't help but stop and glass along the way. A short hour later we were parking the truck and gearing up for the big hike. Il say this, the view from where we parked was worth the price of admission alone.



Surprisingly it didn't take long to break the tree line and start navigating our way through the sub alpine.

[guest]

Looking forward to this story and pics ........ I could use a Goat Fix ........ Some if my most memorable hunts.

Keep er coming Lastbeat

[warnniklz]

Ooooohhhh!!!!

[untilthelastbeat]

After a couple hours we reached the alpine and words could not describe the smile on my face. To finally be in the hills in search of a big billy was just a dream for so long and now it was reality. We hurried our way up to a good spot to glass the surrounding peaks and set up shop for an hour or so.
I forgot to mention earlier we have another partner on this trip. Kyles new pup Vito who is quite the mountain dog and also quite the character.






To our surprise there was not a goat in site... Every peak looked as though it was perfect goat habitat and it was hard to believe with a 360 degree view of mountain tops there was not one in sight. However it was almost mid day now and we weren't going to let this deter us.
We started hiking down a draw parallel to a massive ridge we would soon name the beast. We were trying to follow a trail described to us by an hbc member to where he had spotted goats in previous years. It looked like we needed to hike down the draw and then up the far end of the beast. On our way down we had the bright idea that in order to save time it might be easier to just hike straight up the beast from where we are rather than hike all the way down to one end then up. After all it should look the same from the top right? We decide to go for it..



The view up from the bottom

[untilthelastbeat]

The beast to the right

[Kopper]

Right on, glad you're finally getting around to posting. Looking forward to the rest.

[untilthelastbeat]

Before we started our ascent kyle looked at me and said, "what do you figure, about 40 minutes to the top?". 20 minutes later and probably 50 ft up the mountain side I started doubting if this was the right decision. Just tackling the bottom shale slide was hard enough not to mention the enormous swarms of black flies. I seriously have never seen bugs like that. So this is where I received my first lesson in mountain hunting.. Just because you think you can see the top from the bottom doesn't actually mean that is in fact the top. As we come to the peak my heart skips a best as I realize its only a curve of the mountain side and we are maybe half way to the top. While I guess we're committed now so on we go with the 5 step and stop pace. I knew this hunt would be the hardest hunt of my life this far and i wasn't going to let anything stop me from giving it the best chance possible. Even if I didn't get a goat I would have no regrets.

The feeling when we reached the peak was unbelievable for two reasons. Starring down the opposite side I was in awe of the valley filled with alpine lakes leading up to massive rock faces. The problem was it was not the valley we were looking for.. lesson 2 of mountain hunting. Before you climb a massive mountain make SURE it's the right one! None the less it was spectacular and a great spot to glass so up go the scopes.



Kyle and Vito wondering why they agreed to help me on this hunt.






Vito getting his first taste of the mountains aswel.

[HarryToolips]

Incredible pics!...

[untilthelastbeat]

Glassing session two produced no goats again. By this time it's around 2 or 3 pm and we only have the day to be up there. We decide to give everything one last scan before we start heading down and kyle says "dude... I just spotted the world's biggest..... marmot." Well that's kind of a let down but whatever let's have a look. " how far out " I say and he replies "oh about 1000 yrds". I'm thinking no, there is no way you spotted a marmot at 1000 yrds. Kyle says "he must be 50 lbs!" Ok now im thinking there is no way there is a 50 lb marmot running around these hills. After some time I finally see this thing and determine its a wolverine digging up marmots and eating them! Pretty neat thing to see accept when he's heading right towards your trail down and you have no weapons. After a while he went into a rock face and didn't come out so we made our way down and hiked back to the truck.

[NorBC]

I like where this is going!