Evanguy
10-30-2022, 05:18 PM
I'm not sure why all the pics aren't working, if you click the link they do open though
I didn't post this on here when it first happened as I posted it on another forum and figured most of you guy were on it, but I take it from the response from me talking about it there are people that didn't see and would like too. I posted a very short version of it on CGN "mountain hunting thread" too
We left Gambier island and on the way up north we took our time and made a few stops after leaving Williams Lake after spending the first night, we went into Stewart for the second night and then into Telegraph creek on the 3rd night to take off from there driving to Iskut in the morning.
All 3 places we stayed were great, but the second 2 nights were nicer, in Stewart we stayed at the Ripley creek inn and in Telegraph creek we stayed at Stikine Valley inn. It was owned by natives and they were a great host, and ended up talking to them for quite a while about our “fishing trip” in Mt Edziza park.
The flight into the lake was great, I really don’t like heights at all, but it wasn’t too bad. It was about 20 minutes to get in. When we landed the pilot commented how thick the bush looked so we drove around a bit looking for some thinner areas, we ended up just stopping on a beach and made camp there.
The day we landed we just set up camp, did some fishing and just hung out, planned for the next day we would hike up above the tree line just to see how long it would take and how hard it was. We packed a small day pack in the morning and started to hike up, it was 3 hours and we were above the trees glassing. That is when I saw my first ever mountain goat. Good sign, there were goats there. So, we headed back down to camp for the night.
When we got back down Brooklyn(my 11 year old daughter) had some blisters on her feet, so the next two days were camp/fishing days. We planned for Sunday morning we would hike back up and stay above the trees for 4 nights.
Friday we fished and explored the edges of the lake, found an old camp site, the was the first sign of humans we had saw, we made Shabbat dinner and went to bed and then on Saturday were fishing/hanging out in the shade and a float plane landed on the lake, we see 2 people get out, so we walk over to them, turns out if a father and son heading out on a sheep hunt. After some back and forth talking we had established they knew of a trail that took us up above the tree line and we were welcome to hike it with them. They were very nice and meeting them added to the trip. We had already planned to hike up on Sunday anyway. So, this was great a trail
Well Sunday morning we are up and packing at 630am to be ready to hike around 730-8 we head off down the lake to get to the trail head. I’m thinking if no trail was 3 hours it may only be an hour or two hike to the top. Turns out by the time we got up there it had taken 8 hours and was starting to rain. Brooklyn, me and the 2 people we just met needed water and were done hiking for the day so we all setup camp near a little creek. In the morning we parted ways (more of them later)
We hiked all over the place up there and couldn’t find any goats or sheep, we could see 6 goats from our tent but there were on the other side of the massive valley we couldn’t cross, the other side happened to be the first place we went above the tree line on the first day. The path had looped us over and on the other side of that valley, so lots of awesome looking goat and sheep country but no goats or sheep. We did find an old goat skull and 5x 4LBS bags of salt that were vac sealed and placed on a large rock. We did 2 days of hiking and covered about 25 kms, still could only see goats on the other side of the valley, the 3rd morning up there the wind was blowing so bad I was sure my tent was going to break. So, I woke Brooklyn up at 6am to hike off that windy mountain and back to the lake. We took 3.5 hours to hike down. When we got there the lake was windy too so we made camp in the bushes a bit to block the wind. That went well. We put up a tarp too in case it rained, of the 11 days we were there it rained for 3 hours on the 7th night. Past that it was sunny with a few clouds some days. We watched goats over in Mt Edziza park for a while Wednesday after noon after hiking down, I have a pic of a herd of them numbering 15 walking over the ridge and into the valley behind, it's about 5 kms away so the were blurry dots in the pic but we watched them for an hour and they all walked over and disappeared on the horizon.
We stayed down at the lake the rest of the day Wednesday, just fished, and hung out. Same on Thursday. Brooklyn had some blisters to heal. But we had planned to go up 1 more time before we flew out of there. That was going to be a day trip on Friday.
Friday morning came around and we were up at 8am with a day bag packed, we brought everything we would need if we got a goat. We were making it happen, it was day 10 and the plane was picking us up the next morning. We broke the tree line in 2.5 hours as we did, I could see 6 goats on a ridge and 2 nannies with 2 kids on another farther one. So that’s 10 goats within 5 minutes of getting above the trees. I could feel It was the day.
We saw a goat down on the valley floor crossing to our side, we watched it for a bit and figured it was a Billy, it looked good. So, we headed back behind the bank we were on and ran over to cut it off so we could be waiting for it to pass. We got into position; I had assumed it would be passing by in a few minutes. Then I just look over and probably 20 yards away there is something white staring at me I say “Brooklyn don’t move, stay still” she freezes I grab my camera and take a few pics, then I realize omg why not get my rifle. It moved faster than I had though and it was already past us.
So as the goat backs out of view, I take to running with my rifle over the rock face to try and come down on it out of its sight. I get over the ridge and look left for it, I don't see it I look right and the goat is heading up a cliff face but stops to turn and look at me as soon as it stops, I lift my rifle and shoot as soon as the noise stops the Billy front legs lock up and he begins to roll. I’m so excited at this point, he was still moving and clearly alive. I was so worried about it running away when it stopped rolling, I shot it again, after removing the hide I could see both bullets went into the heart about 2” apart from each other. He just needed some time to bleed out a bit,
I yell to Brooklyn that I got one and he’s down. So, she comes running over the hill after a few minutes to see, then we realize all our gear was back where we first saw him so we hiked back to get it about 500m away as I needed my knife and game bags. Once we get down to him, I check to make sure he’s a Billy for %100 he was, I’ve never been so happy to see a set of nuts before haha
We get him all cleaned up and the meat, hide and head loaded in my bag to start the hike back down. We made it down the hill in 3 hours. All in all we had an 8-hour day from came to back to camp with a goat, then talking to the other hunters who camp back down without their sheep because one of their tents blew away with their sleeping gear. They informed us that they were flying out that night. So, then I message the pilot to see if he can send salt (as the bags of salt we found were a full day hike away) he inReaches back that he will bring a bag. When he gets there around 630pm he hands me a 44-pound bag of salt. Well, no worries about not having enough lol. We get the cape covered in salt and really rub it in.
That night Brooklyn and I just hung out and had a big campfire. We stayed up to 1am looking at the stars and recapping the hunt. On the morning of Saturday, the 20th we get all packed up for the pilot and then make a fire to cook some goat meat. As we are eating some the plane comes in, its 11am. We put out the fire and loaded the plane this time it was a different pilot, we had Brad fly us in and Shawn fly us out. He was awesome as was the first pilot. Once we got back to the car, we headed for Prince Gorge to stay the night then to Squamish to spend the next night and was home early Monday the 22nd
I didn't post this on here when it first happened as I posted it on another forum and figured most of you guy were on it, but I take it from the response from me talking about it there are people that didn't see and would like too. I posted a very short version of it on CGN "mountain hunting thread" too
We left Gambier island and on the way up north we took our time and made a few stops after leaving Williams Lake after spending the first night, we went into Stewart for the second night and then into Telegraph creek on the 3rd night to take off from there driving to Iskut in the morning.
All 3 places we stayed were great, but the second 2 nights were nicer, in Stewart we stayed at the Ripley creek inn and in Telegraph creek we stayed at Stikine Valley inn. It was owned by natives and they were a great host, and ended up talking to them for quite a while about our “fishing trip” in Mt Edziza park.
The flight into the lake was great, I really don’t like heights at all, but it wasn’t too bad. It was about 20 minutes to get in. When we landed the pilot commented how thick the bush looked so we drove around a bit looking for some thinner areas, we ended up just stopping on a beach and made camp there.
The day we landed we just set up camp, did some fishing and just hung out, planned for the next day we would hike up above the tree line just to see how long it would take and how hard it was. We packed a small day pack in the morning and started to hike up, it was 3 hours and we were above the trees glassing. That is when I saw my first ever mountain goat. Good sign, there were goats there. So, we headed back down to camp for the night.
When we got back down Brooklyn(my 11 year old daughter) had some blisters on her feet, so the next two days were camp/fishing days. We planned for Sunday morning we would hike back up and stay above the trees for 4 nights.
Friday we fished and explored the edges of the lake, found an old camp site, the was the first sign of humans we had saw, we made Shabbat dinner and went to bed and then on Saturday were fishing/hanging out in the shade and a float plane landed on the lake, we see 2 people get out, so we walk over to them, turns out if a father and son heading out on a sheep hunt. After some back and forth talking we had established they knew of a trail that took us up above the tree line and we were welcome to hike it with them. They were very nice and meeting them added to the trip. We had already planned to hike up on Sunday anyway. So, this was great a trail
Well Sunday morning we are up and packing at 630am to be ready to hike around 730-8 we head off down the lake to get to the trail head. I’m thinking if no trail was 3 hours it may only be an hour or two hike to the top. Turns out by the time we got up there it had taken 8 hours and was starting to rain. Brooklyn, me and the 2 people we just met needed water and were done hiking for the day so we all setup camp near a little creek. In the morning we parted ways (more of them later)
We hiked all over the place up there and couldn’t find any goats or sheep, we could see 6 goats from our tent but there were on the other side of the massive valley we couldn’t cross, the other side happened to be the first place we went above the tree line on the first day. The path had looped us over and on the other side of that valley, so lots of awesome looking goat and sheep country but no goats or sheep. We did find an old goat skull and 5x 4LBS bags of salt that were vac sealed and placed on a large rock. We did 2 days of hiking and covered about 25 kms, still could only see goats on the other side of the valley, the 3rd morning up there the wind was blowing so bad I was sure my tent was going to break. So, I woke Brooklyn up at 6am to hike off that windy mountain and back to the lake. We took 3.5 hours to hike down. When we got there the lake was windy too so we made camp in the bushes a bit to block the wind. That went well. We put up a tarp too in case it rained, of the 11 days we were there it rained for 3 hours on the 7th night. Past that it was sunny with a few clouds some days. We watched goats over in Mt Edziza park for a while Wednesday after noon after hiking down, I have a pic of a herd of them numbering 15 walking over the ridge and into the valley behind, it's about 5 kms away so the were blurry dots in the pic but we watched them for an hour and they all walked over and disappeared on the horizon.
We stayed down at the lake the rest of the day Wednesday, just fished, and hung out. Same on Thursday. Brooklyn had some blisters to heal. But we had planned to go up 1 more time before we flew out of there. That was going to be a day trip on Friday.
Friday morning came around and we were up at 8am with a day bag packed, we brought everything we would need if we got a goat. We were making it happen, it was day 10 and the plane was picking us up the next morning. We broke the tree line in 2.5 hours as we did, I could see 6 goats on a ridge and 2 nannies with 2 kids on another farther one. So that’s 10 goats within 5 minutes of getting above the trees. I could feel It was the day.
We saw a goat down on the valley floor crossing to our side, we watched it for a bit and figured it was a Billy, it looked good. So, we headed back behind the bank we were on and ran over to cut it off so we could be waiting for it to pass. We got into position; I had assumed it would be passing by in a few minutes. Then I just look over and probably 20 yards away there is something white staring at me I say “Brooklyn don’t move, stay still” she freezes I grab my camera and take a few pics, then I realize omg why not get my rifle. It moved faster than I had though and it was already past us.
So as the goat backs out of view, I take to running with my rifle over the rock face to try and come down on it out of its sight. I get over the ridge and look left for it, I don't see it I look right and the goat is heading up a cliff face but stops to turn and look at me as soon as it stops, I lift my rifle and shoot as soon as the noise stops the Billy front legs lock up and he begins to roll. I’m so excited at this point, he was still moving and clearly alive. I was so worried about it running away when it stopped rolling, I shot it again, after removing the hide I could see both bullets went into the heart about 2” apart from each other. He just needed some time to bleed out a bit,
I yell to Brooklyn that I got one and he’s down. So, she comes running over the hill after a few minutes to see, then we realize all our gear was back where we first saw him so we hiked back to get it about 500m away as I needed my knife and game bags. Once we get down to him, I check to make sure he’s a Billy for %100 he was, I’ve never been so happy to see a set of nuts before haha
We get him all cleaned up and the meat, hide and head loaded in my bag to start the hike back down. We made it down the hill in 3 hours. All in all we had an 8-hour day from came to back to camp with a goat, then talking to the other hunters who camp back down without their sheep because one of their tents blew away with their sleeping gear. They informed us that they were flying out that night. So, then I message the pilot to see if he can send salt (as the bags of salt we found were a full day hike away) he inReaches back that he will bring a bag. When he gets there around 630pm he hands me a 44-pound bag of salt. Well, no worries about not having enough lol. We get the cape covered in salt and really rub it in.
That night Brooklyn and I just hung out and had a big campfire. We stayed up to 1am looking at the stars and recapping the hunt. On the morning of Saturday, the 20th we get all packed up for the pilot and then make a fire to cook some goat meat. As we are eating some the plane comes in, its 11am. We put out the fire and loaded the plane this time it was a different pilot, we had Brad fly us in and Shawn fly us out. He was awesome as was the first pilot. Once we got back to the car, we headed for Prince Gorge to stay the night then to Squamish to spend the next night and was home early Monday the 22nd