The Storms of Life
- Thread starter Big Fin
- Start date
noharleyyet
Well-known member
...there it is.
OverlordBear
Well-known member
Wow that Goat has a beard like Gandulf the white. I am so looking forward to watching this episode 12 times in the next year. I was worried this one might not happen, Congrats fresh tracks crew!
BigHornRam
Well-known member
Fantastic old mountain goat! Best wishes to your mother, Randy.
woods89
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2021
- Messages
- 821
What a cool goat! It's been fun to follow along.
Mtnhunter1
Well-known member
First, thoughts and prayers to ALL of your family. I hope that life works out for the best for all.
Second, "Well Done"! That is a beautiful old goat. November to remember for sure.
Second, "Well Done"! That is a beautiful old goat. November to remember for sure.
The Hedgehog
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2000
- Messages
- 11,617
Looks like a big headed wooly beast - Congrats!
rmyoung1
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2010
- Messages
- 2,322
Congratulations! What a beast.
Blacktail Addiction
Active member
Huge Congratulations Randy!!! So much respect for all that you do and the adversity you overcame to get it done. Wow!!
ovis2
Active member
Well deserved! And what a way to tell a great story!
PorterHouse
Well-known member
Awesome @Big Fin! Big congrats!!
zfountaine55
Active member
So awesome Randy! Congratulations to you and thoughts and prayers for your mom, I have no doubt she is beaming with pride for you!
JShane
Well-known member
I'd just like to say thank you for taking us along in this way. And there's no way this is Not a 2 part episode. Again prayers for you and your family.
Bluffgruff
Well-known member
I'm sure most people dream of hunting an animal with which they have the history that you have with this goat. Congrats on bringing it full circle, and for bringing us along! I just love how those rings stack up at the base. I'd love to see a close-up of that... hint hint nudge nudge
Wally Dog
Well-known member
Great one Randy. Your mother had much to do with the conclusion! We wish her the very best.
brownbear932008
Well-known member
Absolutely the hunt of several lifetimes. I sure enjoyed being along and can't wait to watch the episode in the futute. Congrats Randy and here is to hoping your Mom and the family has a blessed Holiday season and is blessed with great care and health.
Big Sky Guy
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2018
- Messages
- 503
Congrats Randy! Looking forward to finding out how old he was!
Muleyhunter78
Active member
Congrats on the great goat! Positive thoughts for your mom and family as well.
I appreciate all the kind comments and warm thoughts about my family. When I sent the text to my Mom, she was super excited for my good fortunes.
This hunt has been another of those realizations of how blessed I am. So many supportive and helpful people in my life. It has been a mental clearing process to get away from things for a while and spend time in the mountains challenging me in ways I wasn't too sure I could pull off. For all these things I am grateful.
Sunday, the day we took the goat, unfolded something like this.
We headed to the trailhead and instantly found the goats, but could not locate the old boy. So, we again started our path up the switchback to our glassing lookout. With goats bedded in snow, behind a lot of trees, it was tough to tell which was which from a mile away. We could count 8. That meant there were 4 others yet to be located.
One bedded behind a big old spruce looked to be our guy, but I couldn't tell for sure. I kept looking at the few that would stand up and walk around. Besides his comparative size, his filthy coat made it very easy to spot, even in the fresh snow. Eventually Jeremy dropped down about 40 yards to get a different angle and confirmed the bedded goat was the billy we were chasing. I joined him and at that angle without tree obstruction I could see his broken tip and the large mass compared to the goats bedded nearby.
A plan was made. Beau and Jeremy would stay here and give us signals if the goats moved. Me, Jonathan, Dale, Adam, and their mountain of cameras would drop into the canyon and retrace our steps from two days prior, hoping to come out well above them and slowly work our way down to them, similar to what we did last time, just one cliff face further west.
It is easy to drop off the ridge. Akin to telemark skiing, with a shaded north slope of soft snow speeding the descent. When we get to the bottom, it is about a half mile up the canyon on a good trail, taking us right past where I missed the day before. Looking at my shot setup, among rocks and boulders, I start to question why I didn't look around further and find something better. I start making mental notes of better shooting lanes and setup options, in the event we find ourselves down here again. I have proven that the steep angles just require a better setup for me.
We get to the back of the basin and the work starts. Straight up hill for 400', then hit the old game trail that traverses NW along this face, picking our way through the rocks and scree, trying our best to be a commotion slightly below a train of pack mules. We climb. And we climb. Eventually, Adam and Dale ask me where I'm leading us, given we were already well above the goats. I intended to climb another 100' of vertical before headed straight west, then dropping down to the rock spires the goats were last bedded in. They show me their marks of where the goats are, which is lower than what I had marked. I've already led us 150' of vertical above where they think they are. So, rather than climb more, I start traversing west.
They were right. We still came out almost 200' above the rock spines the goats were in. Now to drop down in this slippery stuff and not spook every goat. We benefited from a strong uphill thermal. Sneak down, glass. Sneak down further, glass. Continue that until we get into goat tracks. Ok, they must be close.
As we keep dropping, the slope gets steeper and the spine of rocks and scattered trees drops much more rapid off each side. Eventually the goat tracks lead us to a complete cliff covered in snow and ice. I tell the crew I'm not comfortable going much further in these conditions. One slip and a ten-foot butt slide down the snow will result in someone going 30' off a cliff. Not worth it.
Adam looks at me and says, "I'm an independent contractor, not your employee, so I'm gonna sneak out to that precipice and look down." Off he goes, with me trying to laugh at his deadpan humor in a tense situation. He eventually reaches the tiny point and is standing on a rock only two feet wide, with the mountain dropping 50' to each side and even deeper in front of him. He glasses for a couple minutes and climbs back up, "Can't see anything down there, too steep." I can only shake my head and smile.
I tell them we will continue west to the next series of rocks that are slightly more navigable. The hope being if we get to that crag we can hide behind the west side and be out of view of the goats that are now to our east, as we will have made the better part of a loop to get above and around them. The down side is the wind is now slightly SW and when we drop much further, we risk the wind going toward where the goats were last bedded.
As we slowly drop, we keep looking to our east. In short order, I see three nannies on their original rock nest staring our direction. We stop and glass. We don't have too far and we will be to a flatter spot for better glassing and possible shooting. We ease there. The nannies are now gone. We look across and below to see Beau waving his orange vest to the east of Jeremy, our pre-arranged signal that the goats are moving that direction. As rapidly as he is waving, they must be moving at a decent clip.
I tell the guys that the only way to salvage this day is to drop down to the canyon bottom and go up to where I missed yesterday, as that is the direction the goats would be headed. It is almost 3pm by the time we get to the canyon bottom. This loop has taken the better part of our daylight. It takes us another fifteen minutes to hike up the canyon to where yesterday's mayhem occurred.
When we get there, I started looking further up the trail to where on our hike in this morning I saw an old dead tree stump that might work as a better shooting rest than the pile of rocks from yesterday. I find it. Crap, no shooting lane through the trees that would give much window.
I walk back from the southern face to lessen the possible angle just a bit. I am getting from 320 yards at the lowest spot on the cliffs up to 400 yards where the cliff face finally is overtaken my more trees. I see two stunted and stout spruce. I begin looking around and find some dead spruce laying down and start building a shooting cross brace. I delimb the spruce to my right, given me a brace for a right-handed shooter. I push down on the dead cross brace trees to make sure they won't move.
I now have a wide field of shooting angles if they traverse the same cliffs as yesterday, giving me much more in the way of options. I now have a flatter spot to sit and place my glassing butt pad where I have kicked away the snow. The camera guys have their tripods out and ready, as two goats are bedded at the very top to where we can only see their heads. The tree next to them is 410. Too far to worry about.
I continue building my nest. I have Dale wedge my pack against me back and his pack as a wedge to make it an even tighter brace for me to lean back against. Many of you texted and PM'd that yesterday was likely an unlevel reticle. Not gonna happen again today, even though I don't have a scope bubble for level (soon to be fixed
). I use the notch of an old limb on this cross brace as my starting location to get what feels like a completely level horizontal plane.
This feels so much better. The steep angle seems less of a problem, due to being able to brace my back against a firm support of packs buttressed by Dale. I use the time to practice each envisioned shot that might be presented from this position.
We wait to see if the goats eventually make it to their home base. We don't have to wait long. Within ten minutes there are nannies and young billies doing their normal thing in the cliffs above us. The dirty old boy shows up next to the two we first saw bedded way up high. Not shooting that far, even if he presents a shot. They do enough messing around to get us primed and ready.
They now disappear in the trees to our east. Dang it, hopefully they aren't going to keep trucking east and climb entirely out of this basin. That fear is alleviated as they reappear out on the cliffs, headed back to the west, eventually vaporizing into the trees on the west side of the cliffs. They surely like this cliff face and find bedding comfort on the trees on each side.
The warmth of sun is now absent, thanks to the steep canyon to our south that has left us in the shade, a bit damp from our hiking and sliding through wet snow. The south facing rock face continues to be lit up, making these white and cream objects look bigger than they probably are. A beautiful site as any I've been a part of.
This hunt has been another of those realizations of how blessed I am. So many supportive and helpful people in my life. It has been a mental clearing process to get away from things for a while and spend time in the mountains challenging me in ways I wasn't too sure I could pull off. For all these things I am grateful.
Sunday, the day we took the goat, unfolded something like this.
We headed to the trailhead and instantly found the goats, but could not locate the old boy. So, we again started our path up the switchback to our glassing lookout. With goats bedded in snow, behind a lot of trees, it was tough to tell which was which from a mile away. We could count 8. That meant there were 4 others yet to be located.
One bedded behind a big old spruce looked to be our guy, but I couldn't tell for sure. I kept looking at the few that would stand up and walk around. Besides his comparative size, his filthy coat made it very easy to spot, even in the fresh snow. Eventually Jeremy dropped down about 40 yards to get a different angle and confirmed the bedded goat was the billy we were chasing. I joined him and at that angle without tree obstruction I could see his broken tip and the large mass compared to the goats bedded nearby.
A plan was made. Beau and Jeremy would stay here and give us signals if the goats moved. Me, Jonathan, Dale, Adam, and their mountain of cameras would drop into the canyon and retrace our steps from two days prior, hoping to come out well above them and slowly work our way down to them, similar to what we did last time, just one cliff face further west.
It is easy to drop off the ridge. Akin to telemark skiing, with a shaded north slope of soft snow speeding the descent. When we get to the bottom, it is about a half mile up the canyon on a good trail, taking us right past where I missed the day before. Looking at my shot setup, among rocks and boulders, I start to question why I didn't look around further and find something better. I start making mental notes of better shooting lanes and setup options, in the event we find ourselves down here again. I have proven that the steep angles just require a better setup for me.
We get to the back of the basin and the work starts. Straight up hill for 400', then hit the old game trail that traverses NW along this face, picking our way through the rocks and scree, trying our best to be a commotion slightly below a train of pack mules. We climb. And we climb. Eventually, Adam and Dale ask me where I'm leading us, given we were already well above the goats. I intended to climb another 100' of vertical before headed straight west, then dropping down to the rock spires the goats were last bedded in. They show me their marks of where the goats are, which is lower than what I had marked. I've already led us 150' of vertical above where they think they are. So, rather than climb more, I start traversing west.
They were right. We still came out almost 200' above the rock spines the goats were in. Now to drop down in this slippery stuff and not spook every goat. We benefited from a strong uphill thermal. Sneak down, glass. Sneak down further, glass. Continue that until we get into goat tracks. Ok, they must be close.
As we keep dropping, the slope gets steeper and the spine of rocks and scattered trees drops much more rapid off each side. Eventually the goat tracks lead us to a complete cliff covered in snow and ice. I tell the crew I'm not comfortable going much further in these conditions. One slip and a ten-foot butt slide down the snow will result in someone going 30' off a cliff. Not worth it.
Adam looks at me and says, "I'm an independent contractor, not your employee, so I'm gonna sneak out to that precipice and look down." Off he goes, with me trying to laugh at his deadpan humor in a tense situation. He eventually reaches the tiny point and is standing on a rock only two feet wide, with the mountain dropping 50' to each side and even deeper in front of him. He glasses for a couple minutes and climbs back up, "Can't see anything down there, too steep." I can only shake my head and smile.
I tell them we will continue west to the next series of rocks that are slightly more navigable. The hope being if we get to that crag we can hide behind the west side and be out of view of the goats that are now to our east, as we will have made the better part of a loop to get above and around them. The down side is the wind is now slightly SW and when we drop much further, we risk the wind going toward where the goats were last bedded.
As we slowly drop, we keep looking to our east. In short order, I see three nannies on their original rock nest staring our direction. We stop and glass. We don't have too far and we will be to a flatter spot for better glassing and possible shooting. We ease there. The nannies are now gone. We look across and below to see Beau waving his orange vest to the east of Jeremy, our pre-arranged signal that the goats are moving that direction. As rapidly as he is waving, they must be moving at a decent clip.
I tell the guys that the only way to salvage this day is to drop down to the canyon bottom and go up to where I missed yesterday, as that is the direction the goats would be headed. It is almost 3pm by the time we get to the canyon bottom. This loop has taken the better part of our daylight. It takes us another fifteen minutes to hike up the canyon to where yesterday's mayhem occurred.
When we get there, I started looking further up the trail to where on our hike in this morning I saw an old dead tree stump that might work as a better shooting rest than the pile of rocks from yesterday. I find it. Crap, no shooting lane through the trees that would give much window.
I walk back from the southern face to lessen the possible angle just a bit. I am getting from 320 yards at the lowest spot on the cliffs up to 400 yards where the cliff face finally is overtaken my more trees. I see two stunted and stout spruce. I begin looking around and find some dead spruce laying down and start building a shooting cross brace. I delimb the spruce to my right, given me a brace for a right-handed shooter. I push down on the dead cross brace trees to make sure they won't move.
I now have a wide field of shooting angles if they traverse the same cliffs as yesterday, giving me much more in the way of options. I now have a flatter spot to sit and place my glassing butt pad where I have kicked away the snow. The camera guys have their tripods out and ready, as two goats are bedded at the very top to where we can only see their heads. The tree next to them is 410. Too far to worry about.
I continue building my nest. I have Dale wedge my pack against me back and his pack as a wedge to make it an even tighter brace for me to lean back against. Many of you texted and PM'd that yesterday was likely an unlevel reticle. Not gonna happen again today, even though I don't have a scope bubble for level (soon to be fixed
). I use the notch of an old limb on this cross brace as my starting location to get what feels like a completely level horizontal plane.This feels so much better. The steep angle seems less of a problem, due to being able to brace my back against a firm support of packs buttressed by Dale. I use the time to practice each envisioned shot that might be presented from this position.
We wait to see if the goats eventually make it to their home base. We don't have to wait long. Within ten minutes there are nannies and young billies doing their normal thing in the cliffs above us. The dirty old boy shows up next to the two we first saw bedded way up high. Not shooting that far, even if he presents a shot. They do enough messing around to get us primed and ready.
They now disappear in the trees to our east. Dang it, hopefully they aren't going to keep trucking east and climb entirely out of this basin. That fear is alleviated as they reappear out on the cliffs, headed back to the west, eventually vaporizing into the trees on the west side of the cliffs. They surely like this cliff face and find bedding comfort on the trees on each side.
The warmth of sun is now absent, thanks to the steep canyon to our south that has left us in the shade, a bit damp from our hiking and sliding through wet snow. The south facing rock face continues to be lit up, making these white and cream objects look bigger than they probably are. A beautiful site as any I've been a part of.
