This a long read so grab an ale boys.

I just got back from my LEH trip to the Skeena with my father. This trip had everything including disapointment.

The story starts with us arriving in New Hazelton. We get a nights sleep before calling my friend who is going to take us up to our spot and show us where our camp will be. Our camp is going to be a cabin on stilts just above tree line on pretty much a cliff. It was built by the areas hand gliding club. I sarcasticly ask my friend if this country is at all steep?

We 4x4 up to the cabin and unload our gear. What a beutifull spot. The cabin is a little scary though. I can feel it move when I walk around. It's dry and has a wood stove and a bunk. Good enough.

We take a drive to the head of the trail to do some glassing and we see a 4runner parked. I think, oh no, Danna beat me to my spot!(ha, ha!!). I wonder if some other LEH hunters are up there when my friend spots 4 mountain climbers on the rockface we were hoping to see goats. Disapointment sets in because even where were parked there is some goat sign. We are just going to have to hunt further back I say.

I had to drive my friend back to Hazelton. On the way down, we spot a goat on a knoll at the bottom of a cliff. It looks big and alone. I bomb down the trail faster than safe and drop him off. The ride up has me bouncing off the roof. I grab my oldman at the cabin and we start hiking to cross a slide to get a better look. The distance does not look far but turns out to be very slow going and the day is late. We bump into the climbers. They are horrified that we are planning on shooting goats. No time to educate the narrow minded.

We were just getting into a good position to set up the spotter when I see another white shape beside our goat. My nocs tell me it's a kid. It turns out this kid was good at hide and seek. We are stalking a nanny and a kid. Damn!! We look around a little and see no more gots on this side of the mountain. We do see a trophy black bear defying gravity though. My friend told me we might see him. He's been on this mountain face for years and I'll bet that he dies a ripe old age there too!!

We spend the ramainder of the night listening to the Canucks pre season game on the radio and planning the morning. We are going to hike straight up from the cabin to the top of the ridge and cross over. We are told from there we can hike a joining ridge as far back as a days travel. We plan to take a look up there. It's going to be a tough day so we hit the sack.

Tough is a understatement. We spent the first hour fighting juniper then the fight switched to loose rock and wet slippery scrub for another 45 mins. It was worth it. When we crossed over, there was alot of beutiful country to glass. We spent a couple of hours of glassing and didnt see nothing. This couldnt be. Not with this much country and there was plenty of goat sign. Well thats the way it is. Some times you see em evey where and the next day there gone. You would think it's hard for 20 white goats to disapear on a mountain side but I've witnessed it many times.

We decided we had to hike more country. It was just around noon and we had plenty of time. The plan was to cross a number of drainages so we could get a look inside each one. This proved to be almost fatal at one point. We had a rock slide start to give way. I tapped out half way cross and headed back. We stood there listening to the rocks quietly tinkling away for minutes and we could actually see a massive patch of the slide slowly moving. We crossed above it. The day before my father thought he was trapped on a gravel slide. This is his first goat hunt so I told him to get used to that feeling. We still see nothing so we decide to head to camp.

On the way back across the slides my old man starts tripping. He discovers that the sole has ripped back from the toe of his boat about 5 inches. $500 Miendels. Ouch!! That's going to leave a mark! To make things worse, his boot catches a couple of minutes later and he takes a nasty spill. It's not very steep here but he ends up bruising his hip and elbow. Pain killers await him in camp so he picks up the pace. We later find out his spill cracked the stock on his new A-bolt.

We decide to go to town and rent a room for the night. We are going to do some steelheading for the last hour of light and shower up. We are going to head up the mountain at first light. Ya right! It starts pissing all night and is fogged out in the morning. This is a down day so we catch steelhead all morning and go on a deer hunt for the evening. The next day is the same but my friend fills in his moose draw so spirits rise. We eat moose for the next 3 nights.

On the third day of down time we get a brake in the weather around 1:00 pm. We glass for an hour and we see loads of goats. The day before we seen a monster billy in the broken fog but it was too late to go after him. He was in a great spot too. All the goats we're seeing are out of reach. They are on a cliff face far from our trail head. We do see one that is on a different face near the bear's rock face. He's still in a tough spot but we figure if he moves to the left at some time of the day, we get a shot at him and will still be able to pack him out. We decide to go fish for an hour and come back to our spotting location.

When we return we find him in the best spot we're going to get. Still pretty tough though. Off we go. It's 1/2 hour climb with my truck and another hour to our perch that we glass from. It's 4:00pm when we reach the grassy knoll. We watch this goat for about 20 min hoping that he'll feed his way to a ledge where we can drop him without losing him. If he moves too far the other way he's on a cliff that drops almost all the way down to the hwy. If I hit him where he is, he goes down on a slide about 600 feet down. We can get to him there but it's going to be punishing. He strts feeding the wrong way. Times running out for us too. I decide to take the shot and set up.

I range him at just 400yrds. He's broadside so I take the shot. He goes down and stays where he stood. There is nothing but a little head movement left so we start celebrating. We keep an eye on him but he looks done. That's when I say holy shit! That bear is climbing across to him!! I can't believe it. This bear thinks he's taking my hard earned goat. Not today. My old man lets 3 shots off in front of him to scare him off. It works. The bear starts crashing down the slide to cross the gully we are shooting accross, right towards us. Then thats when my attention turns to my goat. He's dragging himself towards a drainage. He disapears inside it without comming out the bottom. Our attention turns back to the bear who is now closing the distance on us. He is now across the big slide and working his way up the goat trail to our grassy knoll. I'm hoping we don't have to shoot this prick! He stops about 60 yards from us to look back and see what's after him. When he looks back up I give him the old "ooga booga!!" waving my arms. Off he goes down the mountain out of sight, thank the gods!

Now we have a dilema. Is my goat dead. We know where he is but can't see him. If we leave him for the night he could end up anywhere. We decide to cross the big slide. It's about 4:30 and is dark at 7:00. We are leaving no room for error.

It takes an hour to cross. We have to scale a cliff to get where we last seen him. When I get to the shoot he is in, I look up and see him down and not moving. Relief. There is no way I can get at him from where I am so I have to climb around and above him. As I'm out of sight of him my old man makes above from the other side. I hear 2 shots. It turns out he is still alive. My old man cant hit him from where he is to finish him off. I'm feeling kind of sorry for the critter at this point but I have to focuse on finishing him as quick as possible. I get into position for the shot and I know he's going down the slide. I shoot him between his shoulder blades from above. It's over. I hear him crash his way down for 15 sec. I know where he'll be in the morning so we race against time to get back to our trail.

When we get back to our knoll my heart sinks. We see him jammed on a cliff face about 100 feet from the bottom. It's next to impossible to get him. We get back to the truck and head to town. We're very quiet and have put quite a beating on our selves. Tomorrow is going to be tough.

The next morning the plan is for my friend and I to go back up. This trip has caught up with my father. He's done. He was hiking with his right boot wrapped in duct tape, shooting with a broken rifle and bruised up pretty good. He's a warrior! My friend and I are going to try to lower rope from a above ledge and try and rope him. Maybe we can scale to him, or roll rocks to knock him off. We will play it by ear when we get there.

That never happens. We wake up in the morning and it's pissing hard and foggy. When it clears at lunch time, the mountain is snow covered. It's not a light frosting. It's way too dangerous to be scaling cliffs. The mountain won't give up my billy.

We spend the rest of the day catching one steelhead after another but it only slightly helps my mood. I'm too sore to even cast my rod but sitting around was killing me. My friend has taken several goats off this mountain and he knows exactly where he is laying. If the mountain clears up, him and his brother are going to give it a try. My father had to be back fri night.

That's how the story ends.

Wow, great story! I sure hope you recover your goat.

I leave Monday for my first goat hunt in Alaska. I hope Mother Nature treats us better than she treated you!

Boiler - Just now got a chance to read your saga. Tough breaks but a memorable hunt for sure! You've about convince me a person much be at least partially crazy to hunt these devils to begin with! That sounds GRUELING.

Hope you and your Dad have mended and all is OK. Thanks for sharing your hunt with us.

jim

Thanks Jim.

I find flat ground to be deceivingly dangerous. Twisted my ankle pretty good last night and managed to be pinned for a while under my quad.