I’ve been meaning to create a post on here and tell a story for years but never got around to it. Here goes my first one!
I was successful on a Mountain Goat LEH in 2021 but with new babies and Covid my hunting partners could not join me, and I ended up burning the tag. Fast forward to 2023 and I was successful with the same draw. My hunting partner was just starting a home renovation, but compromised with me that we could make it a long weekend and try our best.
We loaded up the quad and hit the first ferry from the Island on September 29. That night we stayed in a hotel and organized our backpacks and all our gear. This would be my first multiday mountain hunt and I was excited to try out my new tent and other gear that I had purchased two years previous for my unused LEH. The plan was to head straight up a trail as far as we could with the quad and hike the rest of the way to set up camp in a spot my partner had been successful in five years previous. Because we had limited time, we decided to just go for it, no spotting from the bottom. If there we goats up there great, if not we didn’t have time to drive around and spot from the mainline.
We started out on the quad and immediately ran into another hunter who had an LEH in the neighboring zone. It had snowed overnight and was much colder than either of us had planned. We chatted for a bit and shared Garmin addresses so we could message while on the mountain. He would be hunting solo and was happy to know he could contact other hunters in the area if he got into trouble.
We took the quad as far as we could go, geared up and headed straight up. It wasn’t long until we found fresh grizzly tracks in the fresh snow headed down. It was about a six hour hike up to our base camp above the tree line. Conditions were not what we expected, and we set up the tent in a blizzard. We were both glad we had invested in the right gear to be comfortable. We went for a small hike once we were set up and glassed for a bit. It was going to be tougher to spot the goats in the fresh snow and we didn’t spot anything. That night we hung our food up in a tree a few hundred yards from camp, cooked our freeze-dried dinners, and went to bed early.
We woke up, hiked to the “food tree”, made a quick breakfast, and thawed some snow with our jet boil as the water that we had was frozen solid. From there we set out on our hike. We spent a lot of time glassing in great goat country but didn’t see anything all morning. By midday we spotted a small pond down behind a ridge and decided to hike down, water up and eat our lunch. The sun came out and I drank at least three liters of water! It was a beautiful spot, and I was feeling great finally getting fully hydrated again. Even though we weren’t seeing any goats I was having fun just being up high and finally mountain hunting.
We hiked back up the ridge and decided to get set up in a spot where we could glass the next peak. As we hiked, I noticed movement down to my right towards our camp and spotted a boar grizzly charging straight uphill at me at about 300 yards. I quickly lost view of him in a shallow gully. I called my partner, and he rushed over to me. I pointed out where the bear was when I last seen him. He chambered a round and I got the bear spray ready as was our plan. Just then he shouted that there was another bear above us and I looked up about 100 yards to see a sow running away from us on the skyline. She disappeared quickly and we focused again on where the boar was last seen. He appeared around halfway between where I had seen him last and was still coming at us. He spotted us, slowed down, then eventually stood on his hind legs and caught our wind. I was happy to see him run downhill at full speed! I kept an eye on him, and my partner went to confirm that the sow had kept moving. I was relieved that the bears were scared of us, but I knew we were not going to sleep as soundly that night knowing there were bears that close to our tents.
That afternoon we spent glassing the next peak but didn’t see any sign of goats. Without seeing any sign and knowing we only had one more day to hunt, my optimism was starting to fade. I knew that being successful on this hunt was a bit of long shot with the amount of time we had. I was still happy to be up there testing my legs and gear and knowing that I was ready to spend multiple days in the mountains. When we were almost done glassing my partner spotted three hunters hiking up straight below our camp. We hiked down to meet them and decided to all camp together as it was almost dark. We had a good time chatting with them and even knew some of the same people from the Island. We made a plan for the next day with us going to the left where we were the morning before and them going to the right where we had been that afternoon. On our last day we woke up to a beautiful clear day and hiked to the “food tree” for breakfast with the other hunters and chatted some more. We said our goodbyes as we would be leaving that day, and they were not sure what their plan was.
We set off on our hike retracing our steps from the day before. It wasn’t long until my partner spotted goats in the next drainage. It felt like an accomplishment just seeing goats. The goat at the top looked substantially bigger and yellower than the rest. I suggested that we run back, pack up camp, hike down to the quad, and try and get as close to them as possible to make a play. My partner agreed but suggested we walk to the next ridge and set up the spotting scope to try and confirm that the top goat was in fact a billy.
We started walking and hadn’t made 50 yards and I looked up on the peak directly in front of us and spotted a goat. It was at 350 yards but for some reason I could tell it was a billy right away. We pulled out the spotting scope and binos to confirm and I got set up for the shot. There was a small ridge between us that would have been a great spot to set up for a shot, but I thought the billy might get nervous and disappear up over the ridge.
I setup on my backpack, felt comfortable, and started shooting. I could hear another friend’s advice in my head “Those goats are tough, take lots of bullets!”. The first shot may have missed, but my partner confirmed the second shot was a good hit. The billy started making his way up the ridge and I knew the other side was extremely steep, so I put a couple more shots in him, and he fell towards us.
I ran to the next ridge and saw him laying down below the far ridge. I got setup on him just to make sure he didn’t take off again. My partner ran up and we realized that we had a billy down! We didn’t celebrate yet as we had a steep climb ahead of us to get to the billy. We geared up, hiked down, and I finally got to put my hands on a Mountain Goat! To my surprise he was a solid 6.5-year-old billy and everything I could have asked for. We celebrated, took a ton of photos and then got to work breaking him down in the sun. I shot the goat at 8 am were back at the truck by 7 pm.
What a trip! I couldn’t have done it without my hunting partner and feel grateful that we were successful!
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