November 3, 2012
We were very fortunate that Kyles mom had requested to take the kids for a sleep over Thursday night- Saturday afternoon. We took full advantage of it and went goat hunting.
Friday morning we woke well before sunrise to get ready for a day of hunting. It was raining...like it had been for over a week now. We got all our stuff together, threw it in the truck and drove off to the area I drew my tag. Once we got up to the area we still had some time before it got light, so we drove a bit to see if we could find a mule deer until the sun hit the mountains. We didn't find any deer so we went back down to a bridge that we had a full view of the mountains and sat and glassed. Nothing. So Kyle suggested we head up to an area called white creek and go for a hike into the back of the valley. We got out and put our gaiters on and started trekking through the horrible alders. As we're going along I asked Kyle a couple times if we were going down the right trail. He kept saying yes. The last time I asked he says,"I don't remember. We may have taken the wrong one." Great. But it wasn't all in vain, when we looked across the valley.... surprise, our first goat of the day! So we watched the goat and tried to figure out how to get to it. We then figured we would go straight down the mountain until we hit the road and go back to the truck. Once we got to the truck we drove a little ways until we got to a good viewing area and pulled out the spotting scope. When we got the scope out and was able to see the goat more clearly and observe it , we were able to see it was a very young nanny. Probably her first winter alone. So I pulled the plug on the stalk. We watched her for a little bit until Kyle says,"Bear." Sure enough on the slide below the goats cliff was a massive old grizzly bear, lounging in the grass. He had no clue the goat was above him, but she sure did. We watched him go across the slide and into the brush, so did she. We decided to pack up and head back to the bridge.
Back at the bridge we pulled out the scope and binos again and started scanning the mountain tops. Within 5 minutes Kyle says,"goat." Sure enough 2 goats were in view. We watched them until they bedded down and figured they were not a nanny and kid. We got our packs loaded and started to climb. Keep in mind everything is saturated from the rain. So within minutes my gloves were soaked as well as my pants. The first part was a clearing, not bad except for the hidden sticks in the grass. Next part was treed, much better to walk in. Then we hit the rocks, lose rock that is slick as ice to walk on. That took a while to climb across. After the lose rocks it was a very steep climb on basically mud and rock with some alders and prickle bushes thrown in the mix. I climbed over half the mountain on my hands and feet, it was that steep and slippery. I was thankful when we had finally reached the bench that the goats were on. We went around the face and the slope grew in steepness to where I wasn't willing to sidehill unless I knew a goat was still on the bench. I sat by a tree while Kyle went over to take a look. He couldn't see them. But then again, we were underneath them, so I got set up and Kyle started whistling to see if we could get one to look over the edge. Nothing. We thought maybe we had bumped them and decided to head down so we didn't have to make the treacherous climb in the dark. On the way down Kyle twisted his knee and it kept giving out on him. I looked at him and asked if we needed to call SARs to come get his ass off the mountain...i got a few profanities thrown in my direction for being a smart ass. I have decided that I hate prickle bushes and that goat trails royally suck. If anyone refers a trail as a goat trail...that means its truly awful.We did make it off the mountain before it got dark and decided we would head home. We got to the bridge and looked over to see if the goats were still there, they were but had moved more to the middle of the face which was all cliff. They were bedded for the night. We came around a bend on our way out and stopped to scan one of the mountain sides not visible from the bridge and sure enough 3 goats were on it, in an easier area to hike. We shook our heads and continued home.
The next morning we were not very enthused to jump out of bed before sunrise, we were both very tired and decided we needed a sleep in. I was up at 9:30 and Kyle got up at 10:00, we got ready and headed out again. When we got up there everything was clouded in. We thought we would head to a clearing and fire a couple rounds to make sure the rifles were fine after the scary descent from the day before (yes I fell...a lot). So we set up a bottle on a stump that was about 80 yards away and while Kyle was doing that I got my pack out and ready to use as a rest. We were talking and as I looked over at the bottle to get ready to get the gun ready I see a white and blond object, coyote. He was hiding in the Christmas trees watching Kyle set up the bottle and was curious. He was standing beside the bottle watching us. Both Kyle and I were shocked. He recovered faster then I did and was soon yelling at me to shoot him. So I snapped out of it and got lined up on him and fired. Trigger jerk. It went over his back and into the bank. I was still in surprise that he had came out like that. Then I was pissed that I had missed him. After we scoured the clearing to see if we could find him again (which we didn't) I went back to shoot at the bottle. Bang! There goes the bottle flying, hit right in the middle. Gun was on. We looked up at the mountain that we were shooting at the base of and guess what was watching us, a goat. Out of my area though. It was getting later into the afternoon and we went to the mountain we had seen the 3 goats on the other day. It was clouded up. We sat for a while hoping it would clear up. When we finally got a break, we started scanning. Kyle found a goat, way way up high and with only a few hours before we had to pick up the kids. I decided we better not risk it and since they were now in their wintering area we would be able to find them again after mule deer season.
It was a well spent day and a half together and we were able to figure out where the goats were for migration. Hopefully it will snow before we head out again and pushes them down the mountain.
Nikita
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