Slowly working my way through the timber right above the cliff edge, ever so often looking over. It wasn't long and I cut the anticipated goat tracks. It was completely flat and very gentle terrain inside the trees; completely out of sight from anything down below. I wouldn't of made it 50 yards along the tracks when I popped out to look into a bowl...A billy immediately popped into the open on the other side, not 70 yards away just inside the trees. It was obvious I startled him and by the time I had the gun up he was gone. I slowly work my way around the bowl and find two beds and tracks everywhere. Figured they'd pop back out in the cliffs below so I hung tight for 10 mins and viewed the cliffs from different angles. Well, musta really startled them because I soon spotted the billies going up the mountain on the opposite side of the valley. They wasted no time going up and out of sight, the slightly smaller billy leading the larger.

Was pretty disappointed, I more or less expected to run into them but really just expected them to jump into the cliffs once bumped. But its not all gloom, as bummed as I was I was confident they would hold up where I lost sight of them. That area is few nice grassy knobs right near the ridge spine and they are perfect goat look outs; took a billy off them a couple years back. I worked my way back down to camp and met my dad. All he had to report was the yearling billy we spotted the day before made his way across the face and was heading straight towards the goats I spooked.