Boulder River Mt Goat

[zoorda]

I ended up going to Lone Tree Pass and spending the day up in that area. The fog never lifted all day. Visibility down to around 30 feet by the end of the day. No goats seen for a second day.

 

[RadSav]

Fun ride you've put us on.  I'm enjoying it.


Early on in my high country ventures Larry D. Jones showed me something that really improved my ability to find and capture water in those high places.  He carried 4 to 6' of surgical tubing.  You can slide it down between rocks, dig a hole that fills with water and use the tubing as a siphon.  On my last goat trip I laid it across wet moss covered rocks and used it as a wick to dribble water into a Platypus bag.  Weighs maybe an ounce and easily doubles the chances of getting water in goat country.

[zoorda]

Fun ride you've put us on.  I'm enjoying it.


Early on in my high country ventures Larry D. Jones showed me something that really improved my ability to find and capture water in those high places.  He carried 4 to 6' of surgical tubing.  You can slide it down between rocks, dig a hole that fills with water and use the tubing as a siphon.  On my last goat trip I laid it across wet moss covered rocks and used it as a wick to dribble water into a Platypus bag.  Weighs maybe an ounce and easily doubles the chances of getting water in goat country.

I will have to try the surgical tube idea, I was able to capture a little water off some moss using the funnels but it wasn't much. I hadn't spent a lot of time in the high country prior to drawing this tag, there was a lot of trial and error with the gear I brought. As well as not being able to carry every thing I wanted to bring.

[RadSav]

I hadn't spent a lot of time in the high country prior to drawing this tag, there was a lot of trial and error with the gear I brought. As well as not being able to carry every thing I wanted to bring.

When you figure it out let me know.   I haven't ever climbed to the top of a mountain with just the right amount of what I needed.

There used to be a lot of bear up in that country.  Did you see any good boars while you were up there?  This thread is really making me wish I was still in my twenties...or even thirties.  I sure miss hunting that country!

Looking forward to the rest of the adventure.  Thank you for taking us along!

[zoorda]

I hadn't spent a lot of time in the high country prior to drawing this tag, there was a lot of trial and error with the gear I brought. As well as not being able to carry every thing I wanted to bring.

When you figure it out let me know.   I haven't ever climbed to the top of a mountain with just the right amount of what I needed.

There used to be a lot of bear up in that country.  Did you see any good boars while you were up there?  This thread is really making me wish I was still in my twenties...or even thirties.  I sure miss hunting that country!

Looking forward to the rest of the adventure.  Thank you for taking us along!

I didn't see any bear or bear sign the whole time I was in the Boulder River Wilderness. I heard of guys seeing them over in the Three Fingers area, but I never went up that way.

[X-Force]

I hadn't spent a lot of time in the high country prior to drawing this tag, there was a lot of trial and error with the gear I brought. As well as not being able to carry every thing I wanted to bring.

When you figure it out let me know.   I haven't ever climbed to the top of a mountain with just the right amount of what I needed.

There used to be a lot of bear up in that country.  Did you see any good boars while you were up there?  This thread is really making me wish I was still in my twenties...or even thirties.  I sure miss hunting that country!

Looking forward to the rest of the adventure.  Thank you for taking us along!

I didn't see any bear or bear sign the whole time I was in the Boulder River Wilderness. I heard of guys seeing them over in the Three Fingers area, but I never went up that way.

Great thread.

I'm not surprised you didn't see any bear sign. Last year was so dry a lot alpine areas where I normally find them were void of bears.

[zoorda]

The next morning the sky was clear, I spent the morning glassing. I spotted several single goats on the cliffs to the East about a mile away. I decided to move camp to get closer to the goats and closer to the water supply I had found. Travelling in this country off trail is a slow process. I tried to move camp about 1500yds to the East. I headed out about noon  and spent the rest of day doing this. I had hoped to get to the other side of the ravine where I had gotten water. Where I was seeing the goats was to far to get to and get back to camp before dark. Travelling off trail in the dark is not something I was willing to try. I was prepared to stay out away from camp overnight if needed but bringing camp with me seemed like a much better plan. Ultimately I wasn't able to get across the ravine and up into an area where I could set up camp. I filled my water containers and headed back to my original camp site.

The ravine where I got water is at the bottom of the pic under the big trees. I was hoping to get up on the hill just past it and then move up to the ridge line to look down into Snow Gulch. I kept getting cliffed out and needed to ropes to go where I needed to go.

[Timberstalker]

What an awesome documentary.   

[zoorda]

The nights were long and quite. Without a campfire to sit around I found I was in bed by 9 most nights. I sleep really good in my Hennessy Hammock, but had left it home to save weight for the hike in. The ENO hammock I was using is small and confining, it also doesn't allow you to lay flat like the Hennessy. I woke up a few nights with my legs trying to cramp. I think this was a combination of the long hikes, not drinking enough water and the position my hammock was forcing me to lay in. I found that putting a stuff sack full of clothes under my knees helped a bit. By morning I was more than ready to get up. The plus side to that was some really nice sunrises and I was ready to start glassing by the time the sun came up. Although I didn't find that the first and last light were any more productive to seeing goats. They seemed to be active all day long. Goat hunting is a lot more about getting to them rather than being able to spot them and finding them when they are not way up on the side of a cliff. Before my hunt I had watched several videos on You Tube of goats getting shot and falling or running and jumping off cliffs several hundred feet up. This added element would be a factor in the days to come.

During one of the nights I had a visitor. Around 2am I heard something walking around my camp, it was within 20 feet of me. It ran off when I yelled at it and I heard what sounded like hoofs on the rocks. Pretty sure it was a goat but I never found any fresh tracks in the area.

This goat hung around above my camp for a few days. Ranged it at 131 yards, too bad it wasn't a shooter

 

[zoorda]

I had several goats start showing up within 600 yards of camp all nannies, kids and small billy's. But still no sign of the Waterfall goat.

[zoorda]

On the 4th day I made another attempt at finding a route to the goats on the cliffs to the east I also had been seeing a few billies on the other side of the ravine where I had been getting water.
I dropped down several hundred feet lower than my previous attempts. The ravine got deeper the further down I went. I didn't really have high hopes of finding a route down there from what my earlier attempts had shown me, but I needed water anyways.

In the upper right part of the picture there is a goat up on the cliff.

[zoorda]

On the evening of the 4th day I decided to try going the West out of camp. The goat that had been hanging out above my camp would come and go using this route.

Looked easy enough, but after I got up through the trees it was shear cliffs. I couldn't even start to see where the goat had disappeared to. They are an amazing animal.

[180-GRAIN]

Zoorda what do you think about the overall herd condition up there? I know that the game department estimates 125 animals but I know they miss a bunch on there helicopter counts due to being in the brush and timber. Do you think they are even close with there estimates? How about the billy to nanny ratio? do you think this hunt could support more tags? Your awesome hunt has me full of questions  .

[zoorda]

Zoorda what do you think about the overall herd condition up there? I know that the game department estimates 125 animals but I know they miss a bunch on there helicopter counts due to being in the brush and timber. Do you think they are even close with there estimates? How about the billy to nanny ratio? do you think this hunt could support more tags? Your awesome hunt has me full of questions  .

Even though I spent a fair amount of time up there last year, I don't know that I could give an opinion as to the condition of the herd. The most goats I saw at any given time was less than 20. While hunting the Neiderprum trail I'm pretty certain I was seeing the same goats day after day. There did appear to be 6 to 8 billies in this out of these 20. That being said I didn't see any billies in the Bullon lake area. But they could have all been right around the corner. There is so many inaccessible area up there that I'm sure I wasn't seeing even a small fraction of whats up there. Last year the biologist told me that they weren't going to do a count by helicopter because of the extreme heat we were experiencing they felt the goats would be in the trees. I saw a lot of goat sign in the heavily covered areas that there is no way you could see into from a helicopter. This was part of the reason I wanted to hunt the north facing side of the mountain. I also was told that the Ranger district was pretty upset that they had open the area to goat hunting, and that the Jumbo mountain portion of the wilderness was originally open, but to appease the Ranger district the Game department closed it. That leads me to believe other factors come into play when they open an area and to decide how many goats can be taken.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Man I'm waiting for this thing to play out, what an adventure.


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