Here goes nothing.
Friday Rainier10 and I got a late start but hit the trail in the dark with a plan. We were hiking in about 3.5-4 miles to the camp I’ve used every trip in so far. There’s a big view of the basin Queez and I saw plenty of goats in 2 weeks before but couldn’t get to them because of the snow. I was still freaking out a little about the snow because there was some in the parking lot at the TH. We got in to camp, got set up and went to sleep. My air mattress had a leak and we set up on an uneven spot so let’s just say I didn’t sleep well Friday night. The plan was to glass from camp before we went anywhere so we got to sleep in a little. We were going to find a goat, go kill it, pick him out, get a room in packwood for the night and then hike back up Sunday morning and get our camp out. We were going to make the Blue Spruce in time for a bacon cheeseburger and a couple beers and the Seahawks game Sunday. That was the plan and we were sticking to it.
I found a goat right away and then Rick and I found another.
We decided to head up to the head of the basin and have a look over the saddle on the other side. We get up there about 1/2-3/4 mile and hemmed and hawed and eventually decide to go directly after the first goat we saw. We were pretty sure that he was a billy but not positive as it was really far across that basin. Maybe 1500 yards or so. So I’m not the brave adventurous type but decided it’s all or nothing. I really wanted to kill my goat in the wilderness and I thought this weekend might be my last chance to do it so we went for it. Into a seriously uncomfortable side hill adventure to the goat. Picked out a landmark to get to where we thought we’d be able to at least better evaluate the situation and maybe see the goat. To say I was nervous on this hill would be an understatement. Mostly it wasn’t bad but there was a few spots that really probably weren’t bad but still made me freak a little. Anyway we get to the ridge above the goat and I took the rifle off my pack just in case something happened quick. We peaked over the edge and couldn’t see a goat. So Rick is a super patient guy. We sat there for at least 6-7 minutes picking the brush apart trying to make a snow patch turn into a goat. No dice. Rick decides he’s going to cross the slide and see if he can bump him towards me. We didn’t even know if he was still there as it’s now roughly 4.5 hours after we spotted him from camp. 20 or so minutes goes by and I’m getting disgruntled as I felt like we just wasted a day getting to this goat that is no longer here so I started looking for the other goat. He was smaller but I felt he was a billy too. Anyway I spin around on the top of the ridge with my spotting scope and All and looked for a couple minutes. Nothing. Turn around back to look at the original spot and all of a sudden this white blob comes strolling down the hill. I instantly throw the rifle up and put the scope on him. First thing that pops into my head when I saw him at 6x on the scope was that he was a pretty nice billy. I put the binoculars on him and agree with myself that it’s a billy. I put the rifle back up and cocked the hammer. Get settled in and about ready to shoot and a voice from God(Rick) calls out. Nanny! Nanny! Nanny! I was like huh?? No way. I looked up to see Rick standing up on the skyline up the ridge a ways. We’re hollering back and forth about how he saw her pee and the pee came out the back and she pee’d like a nanny. Wow. Ok. If you say so. So Rick came back across the slide and all this time the goat decides to bed down at almost exactly 100 yards.
Rick tells me he first saw him at 40 yards when he stood up, acknowledged Rick and then laid back down. Rick got to 17 yards from him before he moved at all. These are some of my favorite photos that he took.
We stared at this goat forever. Spotter, bino’s, back and forth how I was sure it was a billy. Then I remembered the pictures I had saved on my phone.
Rick realizes that he pee’d like the one on the left. Well that’s that. I’m gonna shoot this goat. I said that out loud apparently 6 or so times while we were trying to decide. But eventually went with my gut. Told Rick to get behind me because of the muzzle blast. The brake is loud if you’re off to the side. Got the rifle set up on the tripod and settled in, made sure Rick was ready and shot. Hit him with one well placed 180 grain accubond and he was dead. Never got up. I was extremely thankful for a clean, very fast kill. I was thankful he didn’t go tumbling down the mountain. I was thankful for my buddy being there. I was thankful for a lot of things.
Emotions were at an all time high at this point. I finally killed my goat. This is a weird point. I was positive in my head that he was a billy but I’m not a “goat guy” so I needed to get over there and make sure. This is me praying to God that he had nuts.
Got up to him and lifted a leg to verify and there they were. Oh man... this has been a big day!! That’s when the work started. We took a bunch of pictures and got to caping.
This one shows how big these animals are. I’m 6’4” and about 225 for reference.
We ended up having to tie him off to a rock because he kept sliding down the chute we were in.
Got him all caped out, boned the meat, got him all packed up for the ride out and hit it.
That First chute was rough to get across. The rest of it felt like I was walking on air. From a hunting standpoint I’m not sure I can accurately relay that feeling. I had the cape and head, rifle, spotter etc and Rick packed the meat out. I’m sure we were both around 70 pounds total but I didn’t feel it.
Got to camp and we were both pretty gassed. We each ate a mountain house and grabbed a few things from the tent and headed out. We hiked out in a little over 2 hours and ended up hitting the packwood lodge a little after 10pm. Got a good nights sleep and grabbed some breakfast then hit the trail again. Took us about 2 hours to get to camp, broke it down and headed out. Got out in just under 2 hours and we were at the Spruce about 3pm ordering some bacon cheeseburgers and an IPA. Oh man. We had a plan and we stuck to it. Oh and we didn’t die sliding down a cliff.
Here’s a few more random pics from along the way. I tried to duplicate a few of the snow shots I took 2 weeks ago for the sake of comparison. Amazing what a couple weeks of warm weather and some huge rain can do.
So I haven’t really scored him and I really don’t care what he scores but he’s about 9”x9” and I think he’ll score around 46”. I believe he’s 4.5 years old. I was hoping for an older goat but he met my 9” billy goal. Mountain goats are huge animals.
This may seem a little corny but I felt it was fitting as we were hitting the final stretch of trail to camp with my goat that the sun was setting on my last night in the Goat Rocks. This place is truly amazing. One of the most beautiful places I’ve seen. I’ll miss it. Thank you All for the encouragement, kind words, information, I could go on and on. Just finding it hard to put it all into words. Sorry for the long winded story.
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