The Terror

I glanced back over my shoulder and heard Drew say “man this shit is terrifying”. If you don’t know Drew that statement may not mean much, but those that do will understand that those words hold a lot of weight.

This hunt started as most do with Drew receiving an envelope in the mail from Parks and Wildlife with a mountain goat tag, pretty sure he had been putting in for 14 years before drawing this license.  While I was excited for Drew I personally had a hard time really getting worked up for this hunt.  I can’t really explain why… maybe because I had so many other trips planned for the fall that working this hunt into the schedule was going to be a challenge, or maybe because I had a lot of projects at work.  Either way, I knew I was planning on tagging along on this trip but it was just on the calendar like any other mundane event.  I mention this because when I drew my sheep and goat tags in the past I instantly went into workout/diet mode knowing that these are some of the most physically challenging hunts out there, but for whatever reason, I had convinced myself that my summer spent sweating on a construction site was adequate preparation for Drew’s hunt…  it was not.

While I was not as physically prepared as I’d typically be, I was also hands-off with trip planning and scouting, something I’m usually very involved with.  In driving up for the goat hunt located near Aspen/Snow Mass Colorado, or more specifically in the Maroon Bells Wilderness area, I realized Drew hadn’t put a ton of thought into some of the more specific logistics.  Specifically, and most importantly where we’d be getting water from if we camped up top, which is where he’d seen goats on a summer scouting mission.  As it turned out our camp was just shy of 12,000 feet elevation and what should have been the nearest water was in Snowmass Creek at about 10,000 feet.  So really the only option would have been to walk multiple miles each way as there was no realistic way to safely navigate the cliffs.  And in Drew’s defense as we discussed our options a guy would really need to camp down low and glass goats, climb that couple mile/couple thousand vertical each day or camp up top and haul water.  Really there wasn’t an easy solution.

The other ironic thing about this trip is that when I killed my mountain goat I really didn’t feel like I got a true “mountain goat” hunt experience (see https://thinairoutdoors.com/2014-g-5-chicago-basin/). In all honesty, the goats in that areas were pretty much tame and that whole trip left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.  Sure I’d killed a mountain goat with my bow, which was great and really there’s no goat hunt that you’re not putting in some monumental effort to even get into goat country, but honestly, I’d pictured something more exciting.  I thought this was a good reason to tag along on Drew’s hunt, to experience a “real” mountain goat hunt. Boy was that a mistake!

One last tidbit of pre-hunt info: before leaving a lost bow and bow case was delivered to my parents’ house thinking that maybe it was my dad’s or maybe he’d know who the owner of it was, negative to both.  But being the good Samaritan that I am I posted the bow as lost on Bowsite and a Facebook page hoping to reunite it with its owner.  We repeatedly referred back to this over the course of the trip as our good karma on this hunt was off the charts.

Driving up for the hunt, running through logistics, how we’d climb into the area and what to do about water when we got there, Drew mentioned we were basically hunting at the top of the ski lift serving Snow Mass ski area.  I knew other resorts let hunters ride the lifts up, which would have been massively easier than the horrendous hike we had in front of us and with that information we found ourselves waiting in line at the lift ticket office asking the poor gal questions she had no idea how to answer (thankfully we were still in our “civilian” clothes and not decked out in camo, especially in Snow Mass Village).  It turns out they don’t allow weapons on the lifts (guns or bows) but in general, they were super helpful and hunter friendly.  They directed us to a road that would get us halfway up the mountain where we could park and walk-in from there.  Leaving the lift ticket office, we were already excited as we were driving up the road gaining lots of vertical elevation rising up from the valley floor below, but here’s where our good karma really kicked in.  As we arrived at the parking area with the gated road ahead of us (closed to the public for vehicle traffic but accessible to resort personnel and hikers), I noticed a mountain biker getting ready to go for his ride.  I wandered over asking if we were in the right spot and if the road ahead was the one we wanted.  Turns out the guy is a hunter and a maintenance guy for the resort and lives in an apartment beneath the restaurant at the top of the ski hill, Gwyn’s High Alpine.  He offered to give us a ride if we cared to wait around until he was back from his ride.  He mentioned he’d be gone for about an hour and it was a two-hour hike, kinda no brainer, and by the time he returned we had just finished changing clothes and getting packs organized.

As we ascended the road and kept going up and up, Greg downshifting on all the switchbacks, I couldn’t have been more grateful or believe our good luck.  He said it was a two-hour hike, but I’m guessing Greg is in much better shape than us because it would have taken us twice as long.

Once arriving at his apartment he gave us some overall directions and another great tidbit.  That while the restaurants at the top of the mountain were closed for the season, they had hose bibs where we could get water, score!  As we thanked him again, we started up the one little last stretch of “road” that was CRAZY steep but thankfully short, only a little over a mile.  Once we got to the top we decided to make camp since we were both carrying 60lb packs we didn’t want to hike any further than we had to, and we liked the idea of camping in the sub-alpine vs. being exposed on top.

Opening morning found us hiking the next 1.5 miles by headlamp and we were on top glassing by first light.  Right away we found a bunch of nannies and a solo billy who looked to be in a pretty stalkable position.  Drew decided to make an attempt at the lone billy which didn’t pan out, but he was able to sneak into 30-40 yards before getting busted.  I wish I had footage of the stalk because watching through the binos I could see the billy get up and start to feed as Drew was hiking over.  At the very end I could see Drew carefully peering over a cliff edge and the billy suddenly appeared on the opposite cliff face, through the binos he looked like he was right there and Drew should have had a shot but the binos distorted the distance and he was really 120 yards or so.

After about 3-4 hours I could see Drew making his way back up the hill towards my glassing position.  All this time the group of nannies stayed in the big bowl above us and when Drew arrived, they had bedded in what looked to be a pretty stalkable spot.  After pow-wowing for a few Drew decided to give it a shot.

I’ll let the reader suffer through the video to see the events unfold but be warned that someone should take my camera away from me, I’m a horrible videographer.

I do have a couple of notes on the video from questions that keep getting asked.  The shot was approximately 30 yards and I was filming from 600-700 yards.  If you look close you can see Drew sneaking over the opposite side of the hill than the goats in the first video scene.  One other thing I feel I should point out, after watching the goat slide down the hill I assumed she was down for the count.  She stayed there for about 30-minutes as I made my way over to Drew, but just as I was coming up to Drew I happened to glance over and she was sliding again.  This time she went at least as far and tumbled further down into some steeper stuff, at the end of her fall she launched over some small cliffs (50 feet) and lost a horn, luckily we were able to find it.   I’ll also say that the hillside was deceptive.  As a Colorado native, I’ve been surfing through scree fields since I was a little bugger and the stuff doesn’t bother me a bit, so when that goat came to a rest I thought we had an easy-peasy pack out.  Turns out that hillside was plain terrifying.   With a weighted pack, visions of the nanny tumbling down the hillside gave you a pretty good idea what kind of trouble you’d be in if you made a misstep.  Terrifying was really the only word that described our pack out.   We did notice that your brain gives terror precedence over pain and suffering and while we were gasping for air and taking breaks to give our calves and legs a break we never really noticed the pain and suffering of getting to the top.  And as we clawed our way out of the bowl I couldn’t help remembering the mountain goat hunter who died in this area last year – https://www.wideopenspaces.com/colorado-goat-hunter-falls-death/.  I thought a couple of times about pulling out my phone for some pics of our ascent but didn’t want to be that schmuck who ended up recording his final moments and I also didn’t want any distractions.

Thankfully we made it to the top where we had only one more knife-edge to navigate before being out of the terror zone, and from there we had some smooth sailing back down to camp.  The next morning the pack out proved to be just as challenging as the last section of “road” we hiked up on our way in was so steep, getting down with loaded packs was again quite the adventure, making sure our trekking poles were firmly dug in prior to each step.   I’ve never had such an upper body workout with poles prior to this hunt, my triceps are still sore, and I thought I’d have blisters on the palm of my hands.  I’m not so sure I’ve ever been so grateful to see the truck and be back to “flat” land.  At one-point Drew have made the random comment “friends don’t let friends draw goat tags,” that maybe my new motto for the website!