2015 Washington’s Alpine Lakes Wilderness Mountain Goat Project

[jackelope]

If you're not happy with mountain goat hunting opportunities we have in Washington, here's your chance to get out and do something about it rather than complain about it on hunt-wa.
 

https://goatalliance.org/2015-washingtons-alpine-lakes-wilderness-project/

This coming June, the RMGA is teaming up with Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife to begin the process of potentially opening a new hunting district east of Seattle, in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. The area encompasses two GMU’s, 249 and 335.

On June 6-7, 2015, the Goat Alliance will once again rally the troops for a weekend mountain goat survey. This time we will load up our backpacks and hit the trails for an overnight survey. Our goal is to locate goat concentrations within our search area to ultimately later conduct a more efficient aerial survey. It is Washington state protocol to aerial survey any proposed hunting district before formally opening the area.

Due to wildly expensive helicopter time, technical terrain, and a lack of time and resources, it is the hopes of RMGA that our ground survey will result in a much more thorough and successful aerial count at a later date. If a healthy enough population is documented, the area could become open to hunting and co-managed by the two districts.

WE NEED VOLUNTEERS! If you are interested in joining us in the vital ground survey, please email our project leader, Ty Brown, at norsepeak@hotmail.com. Please provide Ty with your name, phone number, and the specific details of your participation as soon as possible. The success of this project hinges on our volunteer turn out. We hope you and your friends and family join us as we backpack into the high country on June 6-7. More details of the projects specifics coming soon.

[fillthefreezer]

awesome. i hope i can make time to be a part of this.

[shanevg]

I can't emphasize enough all the good things RMGA is doing here in WA and across the west.  This is a great opportunity to get involved and help us get more goat tags in WA in the near future.  Also, if you haven't yet, I encourage everyone to become a member of RMGA.  It's a small, grassroots organization that is efficiently using their member's investment to increase hunting opportunities and mountain goat conservation all across the west!

[kentrek]

Never spent any time I'm that country but might be cool to help....if they ever decide to look around st hellens I can be of much more assistance....there's goats Crawling all over down here !

[jackelope]

Never spent any time I'm that country but might be cool to help....if they ever decide to look around st hellens I can be of much more assistance....there's goats Crawling all over down here !

I'll let Shane say for sure but I'm pretty sure they're going to tell you what trailheads to head in on and where they want you to end up. I don't "think" you have to go search out the goats completely blind.
Hike in and count on day 1, spend the night in the mountains, and hike out/count on day 2.
Pretty sure that's how it'll work.

[shanevg]

Never spent any time I'm that country but might be cool to help....if they ever decide to look around st hellens I can be of much more assistance....there's goats Crawling all over down here !

I'll let Shane say for sure but I'm pretty sure they're going to tell you what trailheads to head in on and where they want you to end up. I don't "think" you have to go search out the goats completely blind.
Hike in and count on day 1, spend the night in the mountains, and hike out/count on day 2.
Pretty sure that's how it'll work.

That's correct.  Contact Ty Brown (norsepeak@hotmail.com) to get get more info and see how you can best help.

[fillthefreezer]

well, im in for sure. got my route 

[jackelope]

well, im in for sure. got my route 

Nice that they're giving out routes ahead of time this year.

 

[WonkyWapiti]

I have my route and it should be a good backpacking trip.  Hopefully we have decent weather.

[HighCountryHunter88]

my buddy and i are in! anyone know how much snow pack there is? if any 

[jackelope]

my buddy and i are in! anyone know how much snow pack there is? if any 

Myself and a few other members were in the ALW in February and there was no snow. I don't think it's changed much since then.

[HighCountryHunter88]

Thanks 

[bugs n bones]

im not sure why 460 isnt included in this?

[HighCountryHunter88]

Well last I checked the amount of volenteers were not even close to covering all of the areas they want to check as of now so adding more area wouldn't help too much as of now... Baby steps?

[X-Force]

How did the count go?

Hopefully enough volunteers pulled through to cover all of the areas.

[westside Elkhunter]

What ever came out of this survey? Did they find many goats and are they planning another one this year?

[swanny]

What ever came out of this survey? Did they find many goats and are they planning another one this year?

I'd be interested to know this too. Just saw this thread and the link, would love to get out and help with something like this for a weekend trip.

[jackelope]

The guys I talked to didn't find many goats. As I recall, the weather was super warm and sunny...not great timing for finding goats as they were trying to stay in the shade.

 

[fillthefreezer]

i hope they do it again this year. overall i think many areas were left with no volunteers and i feel like the weather had a negative effect on sightings being close to 90* up there. our team only turned up one billy. hopefully the ball gets rolling soon, before peoples schedules fill up!

[bugs n bones]

They need to look in 460, plenty of goats here

[fillthefreezer]

how many would you estimate? last i heard, they wanted at least 100 confirmed in a unit before they were at all interested in researching offering a tag