GHOSTS OF THE ALPINE

　

Far above the timberline where the alpine meadows and rocky slopes meet the sheer and treacherous vertical outcroppings of the mountain peaks. There, in the place where it would seem nothing could traverse the incredible masses of sky bound rock, it is there that he lives. The great white goat of the Western Rocky Mountains.

As a Guide in the Canadian Wilderness I have led 56 men on succesful hunts for these magnificent creatures. Undoubtably the most physically and mentally demanding wilderness hunts available.

The incredible elevation at which they live and the terrain that must be skillfully navigated in order to enter their domain is a challenge, even to the most seasoned mountain man.

Standing over four feet at the shoulder and tipping the scales at over three hundred and fifty pounds, a mature Billie is, in my experience, the toughest animal in the Rocky Mountains to bring down.

　

The horses were sweat covered and tired when we finally reached the tiny spike camp, a secluded spot set back off the edge of a small alpine lake very near to seven thousand feet in elevation.

With one pack horse and two saddle horses to look after it didn't take me long and they were unpacked, stripped of their saddles and turned loose in the small meadow that surounded our camp.

My client/hunter, a man from New York, had taken a walk while I tended to the horses and while I was in the midst of unpacking our gear he came hustling into camp, his face beaming with excitement.

"There's a whole pile of goats up there above the lake," he said with a huge grin spreading across his face.

"Well buddy, that's why we rode all the way in here," I smiled back. "This is traditional rutting ground and within another week or so the rut will be in full swing, I figured we find plenty of goats to choose from up here."

I think my over all lack of "drop everything and run for my spotting scope" enthusiasm was a little disapointing to Jamie but I had never been to the Twin Lakes Basins and not seen goats on the Southern slopes. I wanted to get camp organized before we got into the hunting, the last thing I wanted to be doing was rooting around through the pack boxes in the dark.



A thousand feet above the lake we camped beside was another, larger basin which also held a beautiful mountain lake and the Southern slopes above the second lake were usually where as many as five or six dozen goats could be found during the late October rut.

When we walked out of the timber and onto the lake shore Jamie pointed up to the second basin and as sure as spittin' the slopes were dotted with the white bodies of a good many goats.

I explained to Jamie that there was a well used trail leading up to the second lake and that within forty five minutes we could be watching the same goats from well within rifle range.

When we reached the half way point of the steep and rocky trail Jamie was certainly feeling the effects of the elevation and the steep climb. His face was red and sweat streaked, he had his coat tied around his waist and his shirt was unbuttoned to his brisket.

"How the hell can you climb around up here carrying that friggen back pack man?" he asked between puffs of air.

I smiled and put a hand on his shoulder, "I do this damn near every day bud, just wait until my pack is full of your goat's cape and meat, then I'll be as red in the cheeks as you are."

When we finally reached the summit of our climb, I urged Jamie to be quiet and to hunker down so we could use the scub alpine trees as cover, slipping into the basin undetected.

We pretty much crawled into the basin and slowly, cautously made our way over to a large rock that was nearly as big as a small car. Once concealed behind the rock I shrugged out of my back pack and carefully dug out my spotting scope, attached it to my tripod and and got things set up.

Jamie was like a kid at the circus. Figiting around, looking this way and that, outwardly amazed at the whole situation. He counted forty one goats in total, his excitement going with every one he counted off.

While I was giving the herd a good overveiw I quietly explained to him that both Nannies and Billies had horns on their heads, both were legal to harvest but we WEREN'T killing a female so I needed to locate a mature Billie before we even considered shooting.

It didn't take long to spy two Billies laying off by themselves on an outcropping of rock, laying in the late afternoon sun watching over the rest of the herd.

The larger of the two Billies was of trophy quality with horns I judged to be over nine and a half inches long. Having said this Jamie asked exactly how the hell I could tell that at four hundred yards.

I smiled at his half hearted disbeleif and took the time to explain how to properly field judge a mountain goat.

A Billie reaches maturity at five years old, when he matures he developes a dark grey or almost black musk gland that lays directly behind his horns. Both sex's of mountain goats have these glands but when a mature Billie gets near the rut his gland swells and give the top of his head a black look.

An adult mountain goat's ears are on an average of five inches long, thus giving a means of judging the horn length. Now body size, length of face and overall appearance also help distinguish sex, color is also a factor. Although all goats appear to be white, a closer look will tell that a mature Billie is usually and off yellow color.

The horns of a Nanny are hooked to some degree at their tips and grow out and away from the base thus, when looking head on at a Nanny, her horns resemble a V on the top of her head.

A mature Billie's horns grow much thicker and straighter up of the head with no obvious hook to them. When they look like a beer bottle, shoot him.

Well, now that we'd found a mature Billie of trophy quality the next step was to somehow cut our range down to under three hundred yards. Jamie was shooting a .300 Win Mag but rarely did I allow a shot of over three hundred yards. To much room for error allows for wounded game.

We decided to crawl our way towards another large rock that lay out in front of us so, with pack in hand we crawled/drug ourselves through the small alpine scrub trees one foot at a time.

Very near to reaching our objective I looked up to see several of the other goats watching us with some interest and although not alarmed yet, if we continued our approach they would certainly start to climb up and away from us which would  get the whole herd up and moving.

I slid my hefty pack out in front of us and told Jamie to get as solid a rest as possible off my pack. Waisting no time he hunkered down in the prone posistion and readied himself.

We were now just a little over what I thought to be three hundred yards from the two Billies up on their perch, less than two hundred from the goats watching us.

I instructed Jamie to ready himself and sight in on the larger of the two Billies, the one laying off to the right. "Don't you shoot until I tell you to and when I do, shoot him in the lungs."

"We'll wait for him to stand and stretch, then we'll shoot, not until." I said over my binoculars. "Just be ready."

　

Finally the goats that had spotted our movement decided to climb up to a more comfortable distance from us and when they did, the smaller of the two Billies stood up, stretched and walked off from his partner.

Immediately Jamie started figiting around and I had to urge him to lay still and concentrate. I wasn't even finished saying that and the larger Billie stood up.

Before the Billie had even the chance to come fully errect Jamie fired and, not to my surprise, completely missed the goat. His bullet smacked into the rocks in front of the Billie and he jumped straight into the air and leaped up the hill a couple of jumps.

Every one of you know what my reaction was to this and I'm sure Jamie's ears are still burning. After I settled down I instructed him to try another shot, aiming about a third of the way down the goats body.

When the rifle cracked for the second time I saw the goat lurch ahead and stumble a bit. "He's hit." I said flatly, "Now bear down and finish him."

With that Jamie fired for the third time and once again contributed to Rocky Mountain copper deposits. Another clean miss, this time his bullet kicked up dust and rocks behind the goat.

I looked over at him and steamed, "Reload and finish him man, why are you just laying there?"

"I forgot my bullets." he said sheepishly.

OK, now my reaction to him shooting without me knowing it was coming was not a good one, the no bullets comment sent me into a tail spin.

"What the F- - - do you mean you forgot your bullets?" I burst.
"How the hell could you do that?"

"It just slipped my mind." he said while staring into my pack.

"Holy S- - - man, now I have to go all the way back down to our camp to get more ammo!?" I frothed.

"No, I mean I forgot them in my cabin in base camp." he said almost coming to tears.

"Well Holy hell, how the F- - - am I supposed to go fetch a wounded goat with no rifle?" I asked while trying hard to settle down. My reaction wasn't going to help the matter, if anything only make it worse I told my very pissed off 'innerself'.

I layed for a few minutes and watched the Billie. I could now see the blood on his brisket and knew full well he'd been hit poorley.

The ground in which the Billie had chose to make his day bed was far from flat, believe me, it was a series of rocky benches and extremely steep grassy splopes. The rocky benches almost looked like a ancient water rings around the basin and while I was looking up there trying to figure out some miracle plan, the wounded Billie slowly started to climb.

The Billie climbed up two more rock shelves and then, choosing a spot, layed down with a heavy thump.

To be honest, I really had no fricken idea what I was going to do, but I certainly wasn't going to just leave that poor critter up there to suffer.

I told Jamie to stay with the pack while I climbed up and tried to figure out how to get the goat.

Obviously he asked what my intentions were and for lack of words and a need to stay quiet I pointed at the skinning knife on my belt.

Jamie was still stammering away behind me as I started off up the mountain towards the wounded Billie.

When I stood up in plain veiw the entire herd snapped to attention and they all started to move quickly towards the outter rims of the basin.

　
My climb was just a little more than steep and when I reach what I thought was near the Billie's elevation, I was climbing using both hands and just the tips of my Scarpa climbing boots.

I was using a chimney type chute in the rocks to not only concele my ascent, but also as a means of finding constant hand and foot holds.

I stoped climbing and looked back down at Jamie to see him frantically waiving and pointing off to my right.

I watched him for a minute, and holding my urge to bombard him with a good ole' fashioned cussin', and decided I'd better move off to the right and see what he was so concerned about.

With more than a little goofing around invloved I managed to climb out of the chute I was in and hoist myself up onto the narrow rocky bench.

Slowly, step by step I eased myself out onto the ledge, inching my way around the rocky bluff until I suddenly found myself standing precariously close to a very pissed off  and very large Billie goat.

Not knowing what to do I gave my four inch skinning knife a quick look, the look was just long enough to realize how rediculous the idea was. Now I stand near six feet and weigh around two hundred and twenty pounds but all that was going to do for me was ensure I bounced all the way to the bottom when Mr. Goat chucked my ass off the rocks with his very sharp and very shinny black horns.

From less than twenty feet the goat looked about the size of you deep freeze and although hurt, was certainly in well enough shape to kick my butt. He held his head cocked to one side displaying his horns and by the look in his eyes had no intention of turning tail.

It didn't take long for me to decide to get off his rock so, with the haste of a purse thief I turned and scrambled off the ledge and back out to the chute.

Still lacking a good plan I climbed up to the next ledge, one about thirty feet above the Billie, and, once I caught my breath,  inched my way out until I could look down on Mr. Goat.

The Billie had turned around and was standing with his head down facing out into the basin below. I looked around where I stood, still trying desperately to think of some way to dispatch the wounded goat when I spied a large pumpkin sized rock sitting on the ledge.

I scrambled over to it, and kneeling before it, started scratching at it until I'd worked it free. Still kneeling, I rolled the heavy rock up onto my lap and somehow got it propped up onto my belt buckle.

It took some wiggling but I got stood up, slowly walked over to the ledge and peered over to see Mr. Goat still standing there below me.

I hoisted the boulder up to my chest and with one hard push sent it over the ledge. To my utter amazement the rock hit the poor goat right at the base of the neck and pretty much flipped him off his lofty perch.

I stood with mouth open as I watched the poor goat bounce and crash his way down the mountain side towards the now frantic Jamie.

Jamie was hooting and hollering while he watched the goat tumble and when the Billie finally came to rest on the shale slope far below me, he never moved.

I worked my way back down through the rocks to the goat and Jamie not sure to feel proud or ashamed for what I had done.

I had done what was needed to dispatch a wounded animal but felt very poorly for the way he had to die.

In any event, I can honestly say, "I killed a mountain goat with a rock."
Written by;
Ron Arnett

"A Man From The Wilderness."