After pushing the limits with hunting, work, and my marriage, I told my wife I would take a year off from sheep hunting and really most hunting that year except for moose, we depend on that. Brian, had just drawn an illusive moose tag and convinced me to put in for the registration goat hunt in a similar area “just in case” we saw some goats and “just in case” I was able to pull off going out with him looking for a moose. Unfortunately for me, I had taken annual leave at work off the whole month of August but now I wouldn’t be hunting. However, as the end of the month approached there was a 5 day window that I could just maybe pull off going goat hunting. Honestly, I didn’t know what to think about the hunt. I knew it would be hard, but I had been sheep hunting before, could this be harder than that? I had heard many mixed reviews on how goat tastes, but doesn’t it seem like everyone has had some bad tasting “rutty caribou” or “smelly goat”?. Some people said they taste like piss, others said it made the best Italian sausage ever, and others said it was just plain tough. Either way, I knew I wanted to experience it for myself as many of the other legends about different game meat have been wrong.
I started scouring maps from every different source you can use these days (aren’t we lucky for the internet, OnX, google earth, etc?) I had found a route into the area that would seemingly maximize my time since I had such a short window, but didn’t have the logistics to pull it off. At first, I thought I would end up going solo but truthfully, I’m not man enough for that yet.. So I reached out to my buddy Joe. Joe and I have both been blessed with our share of success in the mountains over the years but he had his group of guys he hunted with and I had mine. Good hunting partners are as hard to find as a spouse and once you have your circle, usually you don’t intermingle, but as The Lord would have it, this was our time to join forces and see what we could make happen. Joe had been talking about and gearing up for going on a solo sheep hunt during the same time so I wasn’t sure I could sell him on joining me for the “inferior” goat. Come to find out Joe had also signed up for this tag as well, so I knew there was a chance. After a few phone calls, talking about the plan, figuring out the logistics, and Joe realizing his shoulder kept popping out of socket pretty much anytime he sneezed, he agreed to come.
Day 1- August 30th- The push off
Trying to time some weather with the time we had allotted, the day was here. I drove my moms, beat up black chevy in, to pick up Joe. My brother had been borrowing the truck while he was in town from working at the mine and the night before the girl he was driving home puked all over the cloth seats. Despite an immense amount of baking soda, vacuuming and lemon essential oils, we were in for a pungent ride. We loaded up the mostly inflated, dark gray, 6’ rubber dingy, with a beat up, white, paint chipped 5hp Evinrude kicker into the back of the truck. Once we ratcheted it down we hit the road, with the windows cracked, or course. When we arrived at the small fishing town, the breeze was fresh, the rain was light, and the clouds were dark. Most importantly though the seas were calm. We awkwardly ferried the boat, across the algae covered, slippery rock, trying not to fall while wearing our mountain hiking boots. Then our Barneys packs with the rain covers on them. Next was Joe’s rifle and my bow. I forgot to mention, I had just bought a bow a month ago, and decided that this was a great time to get my first animal. A goat, with a bow, that was the goal. We donned our rubber rain gear, Joe with the blaze orange Helly Hansens and me with the mud brown ones, secured our life vests extra tight, said a prayer and pushed off like two Russians trying to cross the ocean, crammed in this tiny dingy. As we pushed off and began to move across the bay, Joe pinned the throttle to the 5 horse, which had the restrictor plate removed so she ran like a 9.9, and as she screamed, we crept, slowly deeper into the ocean. The birds seem to mock us as they flew faster than us doing circles and squawking. I remember looking over at the massive cruise ship that was in port and seeing your average 20-ish foot ocean boats next to it looking so small then laughing at how small we must be and wondering if they could even see us.
Day 1- August 30th- Adventure Begins
As we approached the bay we took a wide berth around so we could look up the valley and get our bearings one more time before we headed into the thick timber. We eased the bow of the boat onto the rotting pink salmon shoreline, pulled the boat up, and then began to look for a place to hide the boat. We had a high concern that bears would enjoy the dingy as a chew toy. The shoreline transitioned from jagged rock into chest high grass covering a fair amount of deadfall and driftwood, ready to impale you at any moment as you slipped on to them. Nevertheless, Joe found a void in between two trees that he liked and we started carrying everything up there. I assumed we wouldn’t want anything around the boat once it was in place, but to my surprise Joe started putting smaller trees on top of it. Come to find out he was trying to “hide it”, which seemed like an odd plan to me because I just pictured those trees with jagged broken branches moving in the wind and popping the boat, but I followed suit. Once everything was situated to his liking then he grabbed a can of bear spray and began spraying it all over the boat and the trees around it as means to hopefully deter the bears. Again, I thought I had heard bear spray works immediately on bears but once it sits out it may be an attractant? Not sure where I thought I heard that and I could be way off, but I didn’t care too much, we’d figure it out when we got back, I was just ready to start hiking. Once we were done coughing from inhaling the pepper spray, the adventure began.
We donned our packs, set the trekking pole heights, and started hiking. The moss covered rainforest floor, the old growth trees, the thick brush that would open into meadows, was surreal. We felt like we were in a different world with seeing every shade of green imaginable in a lush and overwhelming way. I had flown the area with our buddy Bruce two weeks prior to the hunt to get a lay of the land. I remember telling him it doesn’t look too bad from up here, a couple miles of suck, a big climb and we should be in goat country. Now being on the inside of the canopy I realized how mistaken I was. As we were walking through this pristine wet rainforest my mind began to wander. I wondered who had made the better clothing choice. We had two different clothing tactics. Joe went with the mindset of hiking in his rain gear and no clothes underneath to have a dry set when we got to camp. I went with the mindset of only plain clothes and I’ll save my rain gear for later. One thing we both knew for sure, we were going to be wet one way or another from either sweat, rainwater, or most likely both.
Day 1- August 30th- 1st problem
About 30-40 minutes into the hike we realized we had made a mistake. When we took the wide berth out in the bay to see the valley we ended up staching the boat on the wrong side of a substantial river. We chatted briefly about going back to the boat and moving it and crossing at the mouth of the river, but decided we should be able to find a way to cross. This deep gray glacial fed, rain influenced river didn’t make it easy to cross though. We were having a hard time finding a decent path. We scurried across a log jam which led us to an island in the middle of the river, hoping that the fork the log jam caused would help us, but it didn’t. We walked up the island until it turned into water and there looked to be a crossable route. I was already soaked but surprisingly my feet were not yet. I began to take off my boots and prepare to cross while Joe continued to look for another route up stream. Luckily just before this hunt I had got a pro-tip from a friend named Mark who told me to tie a piece of P-cord to the back loop of my crocs so I could tie them around my ankle and the croc wouldn’t come off mid river crossing, thank God I listened. Once everything was prepped I took two steps into that water and the cold that overcame me was something that words can’t explain. I was already getting cold just from sitting in the rain, not moving, while taking my boots off and now this water just exacerbated that. Joe and I met midstream and he led the way of the river crossing. A few steps in I had remembered to take my phone out of my pocket and place it into my bino harness, good thing or it would have been submerged in glacial silt water for several minutes. Not sure Apple’s waterproofing technology is worthy of that. Being on the shorter side of the height scale in life, the water was hitting me just at and above my hips at one point, too high for comfort but too scared and committed to try to turn around at that point. Right as I was most nervous, my next step slowly elevated me up and to the shore. Meanwhile Joe was looking at me like cool hand Luke from the bank like it was no big deal. We quickly dried our feet the best we could and now we were cruising. Machetes in hand, thanks to our friend Fred’s tutelage in backcountry bushwhacking, we began to take on satan’s army of devils club in the field before us. We were moving with a purpose and excitement despite feeling like we were starting to fall behind for the day.
About three hours or so from when we started hiking, we stopped for a snack break. This didn’t last long. We were both shivering before we could finish our snack bar of choice. Joe quickly checked his InReach to make sure we were headed in the right direction, we polished off our waters, making note we’d need to stop and fill up at the next opportunity, and then headed for the big climb that was in front of us. We dropped down into a beautiful lush meadow that seemed like an oasis of sorts in the middle of all this old growth forest. It had a small pond in it, a brook leaving it and the sound of a large waterfall rushing behind it. We both stopped and I said, “Dang! This is so picturesque.” It seemed like there should be two deer grazing in the meadow and a black bear taking a drink from the pond with an eagle in the trees. Our next obstacle was one straight from a movie. We came to a large ravine that was probably 30-50’ straight down and had two trees that had fallen across. One at ground level and the other at just above head level practically yelling at us to use them as a bridge. So we did. Joe went first and took his time navigating this rain soaked, moss covered, dead fall tree across the lush intimidating ravine. Hands above his head using the second tree as a sort of railing, sideways shuffling until he got to the other side. I followed suit and made it without incident. We looked at each other and said wow that was kinda crazy, and could have been bad. Little did we know what was truly in store.
Day 1- August 30th- Problems continue
The tree bridge put us on a roughly 60 degree slope to start the big climb. Joe was in front, both hands in his trekking pole straps pulling himself up the steep, wet slope. He was a couple steps ahead of me when I heard him slip, followed by him saying “my shoulder, my shoulder is out, pull traction, hurry.” I got up to him, grabbed his elbow, and pulled straight down with my right hand while simultaneously putting my left hand on his chest near his shoulder socket. That gave him some temporary relief, at least enough for him to take a few breaths and prepare for us to attempt to reset his shoulder. I had seen Joe and Dave, both paramedics at work, do this a number of times in the field but I had never done it. Joe talked me through it and we were able to pop it back in, with relative ease. I remember feeling like well shit, what now, this doesn’t seem like a recipe for success but we can’t stop here either. Joe, being a man’s man, says I’ll be okay but I can’t slip again or be chopping the trail. So I put my poles away and started dual wielding machetes and up we went. I have chopped thick trails before in alders, willows, and devils club but this was something special. I had never experienced how thick these salmonberry bushes were. It was literally insane. It was so thick the rhythm was 3 whacks to take one step, 3 whacks, one step, the real grind had started. Every so often I would try to get bullheaded and try to just push my way through them and inevitably I’d slip and fall, wasting more energy. After a while we stopped to take a breather and Joe tried to pull out his InReach to check our progress and he realized at our snack break hours ago, he never zipped his pocket back up and it had fallen out of his pocket. What a gut punch. He was bumming but I was glad because at least I had mine. We started marking the trail a little bit with flagging to help us find our way back down in a few days and continued to climb. It started getting dark since we were still under the canopy. We had been hiking for way too long I felt, and the question of when we were going to make it out of the tree line started to creep in. We decided we had to keep pushing. After another 30 minutes or so the trees began to thin, and we were now in tall grass and shrubs. I looked down to grab my phone to take a photo and then the second gut punch occurred. My phone was missing. My bino harness had come open somewhere during the bushwhacking and through all the movement my phone had slipped out. I felt sick. I was worried about all my photos of my kids and family being gone, the monetary expense of replacing it, and all of the other inconveniences that come with losing a phone.
6 hours, 1.2 miles, and only about 1600’ of elevation later we finally found a place to set up our tent. Exhausted, thirsty, cold and wet, we began to set up camp. Joe took every bladder and water bottle we had and fetched some water, while I began to get my gear situated and wet clothes off. Once we were settled in, the rest and rehydration efforts began.
At some point the rain stopped and the clouds somewhat lifted so the glass came out. We began glassing and it wasn’t long before seeing the excitement of a white dot through the binos quickly made us forget about the trek in. “Oh man, we gotta get the spotter on him” Joe said. We got the spotter on the dot and both admitted he looked like a billy and a nice one at that. Now neither Joe or I had been goat hunting before so we studied him over and over looking for all the signs to quadruple check and confirm he was a billy. We then started planning on different routes to him and came up with 3 or 4 different options. We were still more than a day away from opening day and knew a lot could change between now and then but the shock of hiking all day, setting up camp, and now glassing a legal billy fired us up to say the least!
Day 2- August 31- Learning to read Maps
The second morning came and the rain was relentless and the visibility was non-existent, so rest, we did. Thankfully when Joe got water it was enough to sustain us for drinking water and dinners for a day and a half so we didn’t have to leave the tent and get more wet. As we sat there licking our wounds from the gear we had lost, and the physicality of the hike up, Joe pulled up the maps on his phone to kill time and look over our stalking route options. After a while he quietly mumbled, “Uh, dude, I don’t think we are in the right spot.” “Umm what do you mean?” I said slightly confused. He went on to show me that the base of the cliff we were at was not the “big cliff” I had seen from the air like we thought it was. I couldn’t believe it. The more we looked, we discovered we weren’t even close, maybe half way. All that time talking about different ways to approach that billy from yesterday was a complete waste. As we sat there acknowledging this day was wasted due to weather, the pressure of the short hunt duration set in. The mental mountain math began in my head. Ultimately it will take us two days to get into position, we just sat here for a day, and all things being equal, it will take us two days to get out. Success seemed dim. The positive side is we knew what we had to do tomorrow which was to start hiking. It couldn’t be any harder than the first day right?
Day 3- September 1- Opening Day
Day 3 started off with no rain but zero visibility. Like pea soup, thick, gray, socked in, zero visibility. We slowly packed up camp, hoping the clouds would break but they didn’t. Joe mentions that we shouldnt hike in this since we cant see. I quickly, maybe too quickly, respond that “well we know where we have to go, which is up.” After a few remarks back and forth along the lines of “well duh but what’s the best route?” and “I don’t know but let’s just start hiking and we’ll figure it out.” we start trying to pick our way up this rock face. Two attempts were made that we had to back down from. We then started climbing up this patch of alders that went up the rocks. We figured if they could grow in this crack we should be able to use them as hand holds and hike and pull our way up. We made it about half way up when I realized, man, we messed up, we shouldn’t be here picking our way through this rock face. We can’t see. Everything is wet. The trees are gone. We can’t turn around. We can’t fall. I scared myself two years ago sheep hunting and told myself I wouldn’t put myself in this situation again, yet here I am again going up a cliff I shouldn’t be. Thanks to The Lord, we made it to the top. We sat down and my legs were shaking from the adrenaline dump. We had some water, talked about how dumb that was, chuckled, and started hiking again.
The rolling hills of false summits continued for several more hours but the clouds slowly but surely began to lift. I think it was about three hours later we finally made it into our hunting area. As we found a suitable place to set up camp, the wind picked up from a light breeze to a strong wind and we yard-saled all of our gear and clothes in an attempt to get things to dry out. We both threw on our puffy gear and crocs and set up the tent. As we ate food the clouds lifted and the view of what transpired in front of us was breathtaking and overwhelming. We were set up on the saddle that connected two large valleys. Surrounded by hanging glaciers, jagged cliffs, rolling hills, glacial ponds and a sun that was setting giving that alpenglow ambience magnifying everything. I don’t know if it’s because all I saw was gray clouds and fog for three days before this but to this day it was one of the most beautiful landscapes i’ve got to experience. We pulled out the glass and started searching the right valley. We saw a handful of black bears before Joe spotted the first goats way down the valley. We both looked at the goats and then paused, we were short on time and here’s an opportunity. Normally, when I hear people say “we saw a legal moose, or sheep, but it was just too far.” I would silently judge them in my head thinking “you just didn’t want it bad enough” and here I was for the first time eating humble pie thinking, man, I think it’s just too far, I don’t have it in me. Joe concurred. Thank God because not 30 minutes later we watched a black bear chase those goats up the rocks and out of the valley completely! We then decided to take a short walk so we could glass the other valley. Despite being absolutely beautiful we saw no animals. We then looked behind us and to our surprise we found a couple different billies! The downside is they were not in our hunting area. We watched them as they slowly fed up to the cliffs for the night and decided to head back to our tent. When we got to the tent there appeared to be a new white spot in the cliffs that we had previously scanned in the first valley. Sure as shit, there’s billy, staring our way. The excitement is back. We quickly ranged him and he was 1000 yards away! Oh man, now what?! We triple check again that he is in fact a billy, then the back and forth begins. Do we go now? It’s 7pm. Can we make it in time? If we go and get him do we pack him back through the night and cliffy territory or get him, gut him, and take him out the next day? As we talked and watched he very slowly was wedging himself in this nearly 90 degrees vertical craig in the rock face. “One thing is for sure, if we go tonight, you ain’t shootin him with your bow.” Joe said. That statement grounded me. “Yeah, you’re right there.” I said. Ok morning stalk it is, we agreed. We would put him to bed tonight, be up before light tomorrow, sneak to the bottom of the cliffs in the grass and wait for him to come down to feed. It seemed perfect. Everything was falling into place. The billy wasn’t moving, the wind was starting to blow real good and Joe hit the hay since we had an early morning. I stayed up mayne 20-30 more minutes before I called it quits too. It wasn’t pitch black yet but late dusk. He wasn’t really moving and didn’t seem to have anywhere to go.
Day 4- September 2- It’s Go Time
Beep, beep, beep! Sounded the alarm on my watch as my heart rate shot up. It’s go time. I quickly sat up and realized we had misjudged when first light was. The last two mornings it was much darker due to the low clouds, fog, and rain. With the new high pressure system that had moved in, it was already barely enough light to see. I threw the binos to my face looking for the billy in the last place I saw him. There was nothing. I rubbed my eyes and began to frantically scan the cliffs. Nothing. I threw the puffys on and ran out of the tent to the edge so I could see the whole valley. Nothing. I felt sick. I couldn’t believe this. After all we had been through to get here, all because I wanted a little more sleep and didn’t watch the goat until it was pitch black, now it’s gone. Opportunity wasted. How could I do this? How soft can I be? Why isn’t Joe out of the tent? Frustrated is an understatement. I walked back to the tent, unzipped it, and bluntly blurted out “ The goat is gone Joe.” “What?” he sleepily said. “He’s gone, I scanned the whole valley, I knew I should have watched him all night, he’s gone now. The wind must have pushed him up and over to the leeward side.” I said. “Well…..That sucks,” Joe said. Joe sat up, I let my blood pressure lower, and we began to think. “Did you check the other valley already too?” Joe said. “Nope, I guess we can go check it out, it’s our only option before we have to start heading back sometime today.” I said. Joe threw on his puffys and crocs and went for a silent walk. Letting the glass work from far to near, there wasn’t anything immediately standing out down the valley. We continued to walk further and further down the saddle to make sure we could see all the angles and the backside of the “fin” that separated the two valleys. “Dude, 2 goats, to our left!” Joe quietly exclaimed. I turned to see what he’s talking about and I couldn’t believe it. We threw the spotter on them, confirmed they were billys, and all but sprinted back to the tent to start breaking it down. It was a beautiful bluebird morning and the wind was absolutely ripping. We packed our gear in record time, made a game plan, and started the long stalk. As we started towards them we started bumping other goats we had not seen. We came within 400 yards of a nanny with a kid as we crossed the saddle and headed for the cliffs. Once we were within roughly 800 yards we entered that space that all hunters hate. We were unable to see them anymore due to the steepness and terrain. We snuck through the rolling hills until we were finally at the base of the rocky cliffs and shale chutes.
Day 4- September 2- The Stalk
We took a quick water break, and both agreed, although this has bit me a few times now, to leave our packs and just grabbed what we needed for the stalk. “Alright, what’re you thinkin’ here man?” whispered Joe. “I’m going with the bow” I said “ I got to! I gotta try”. We both chuckled. “Allrriiigghhtt, I’m bringing my rifle.” he said. I began going through my mental checklist in my head. Release? check! Arrows? Check! Range finder? Check! I checked the sight pins, they were set for 20 and 40 yards. I told myself I did want to shoot over 40 but 50 was extreme max. We began the painfully slow stalk up the shale chute. I asked Joe to lead the way so if he saw them I would have time to knock an arrow and get a range. Our wind was terrible, it was blowing up the mountain, we were just hoping we would be far enough to the side that it wouldn’t swirl over to them, we didn’t really have much option for another route. Each step seems so loud. Might as well be walking on dinner plates and trying to be quiet about it. Every time a rock falls or you slip you just wonder was that it? Was that the thing that’s going to blow these goats out of the area? This is never going to work. But we press on, slowly. We get about halfway and stop for a pow-wow. “I think they are below us” said Joe. “Really? I don’t haha “”Well let’s head up to the top of the cliffs and at least if we are wrong we are way above them.” I said. Joe agreed. We continued up and at a slight side hill motion. The face of the mountain had these wavy terrain features that made it hard to see straight across. Everytime we came to a wave we would slowly poke our heads over, confirm no goats and keep going. Eventually we made it as far as we thought they would be and didn’t see anything. My gut is telling me with the wind and noise these things busted us, but Joe was so certain they were below us, I just couldn’t seem to agree but down we went. We kept slowly sidehilling as we worked our way down. I was about 10 yards behind Joe scanning the terrain as we continued downhill and all of a sudden, no more than 60 yards away I just see a white tuft of hair, the side view of the back of a goat appeared. “Joe!” I whisper-yelled. He stopped. I could barely talk when I got to him. We sat down on top of this rock outcropping. And I told him there is a goat literally right there, we are on top of them. I thought this might actually work! We were gonna walk right over and pop out less than 20 yards from this thing here we go! We stood up to make the move, Joe flung both his arms out and said, “ Don’t move! Another one is directly below us.” Now I’m shaking, adrenaline is in full dump, we are pinned down. “How close are we talking?!” I said. “Pretty close lets wait for him to look away and then you get on my right and into position” coached Joe. I timed the move, arrow knocked, stood up, and successfully made it into position. We were in this scenario where the goat was bedded below us to the right, facing away, but when he was looking downhill, we felt he could see us in his peripheral view. The wind was blowing 10-15 miles an hour up the mountain. We were above him, which I hadn’t shot from an elevated platform before, and he said “69 yards, how good are you at 69 yards?” “Uhhhh I’ve never shot 69 yards before, furthest was 60” I sheepishly said. “We gotta get closer somehow” I whispered. The cliff we were on had a peninsula off it that angled toward the billy but it was like 4 feet below us. If I could just drop down that 4 feet and crawl to the end of it that would put me at 49 yards, that should work, I thought. I began to hang my feet down, and as slow as possible, bracing for razor blade shale to enter my back, I started trying to slide down the drop. I was about at the point of no return, knowing that I’m going to make noise when I dropped, I couldn’t quite reach the landing with my short legs when Joe told me to stop because the goat was looking our way. He stared for a couple minutes then dismissed us. I just started going again and the billy stood up slowly and started feeding and stretching. He slowly started to walk away. “69 yards!” Joe whisper-yelled at me. I was stunned I knew this was it. I began to look back at Joe as I said, “What should I do?” He goes, “ Safety is off, one is in the chamber” and hands me his rifle. I hesitated for a whole half a second and said screw it! Grabbed the rifle, steadied the cross hair on the vitals, and dropped the hammer. Boom! I looked up after the shot and saw the billy trying to run up but was running sideways and disappeared over one of the waves in the terrain. I knew it was a good hit. (I sure hope so, it was a 69 yard shot…) Now I’m not like those mossy oak, deep south, tree stand hunting, deer hunters when I shoot an animal. Joe and I let out huge roars of victory and embraced! Then the wild hair pops. What about the other goat?! Should we go try to find it?! “F^&* it! Let’s go!. We start quickly scrambling across the loose shale, falling while trying to look up the mountain to see if we see the other billy running away. We get over to where it was and see nothing. We run over the next ravine, look up, no goat running, look down and see my goat piled up. We keep looking up and all around, he is nowhere to be found. We look for probably 3-5 minutes before we agree let’s go check out my goat. Now Joe was behind me, rifle in hand, I was probably 10-15 feet ahead of him. We were about 30 feet from my goat. I began to take a step into this small, rocky ravine the goat was in and out of nowhere, Boom! Boom!… me, dazed and confused, thinking for some reason he is shooting my goat again, look up just in time to see a goat doing the billy goat suicide jump off these cliffs to never never land, Boom! A third shot. I looked back at Joe who looked pale like he just saw a ghost and said, “Well, did you hit it?!” “I think so….” he said with a bit of doubt in his voice. We walked to the edge of the cliff and 2 seconds later saw his goat rolling down a snow patch way at the bottom of these cliffs. Another victory roar! “Oh man! What in the world did we just do?! We are so screwed! How are we going to do this?” We both said. We start uncontrollably laughing and then admiring my billy. “Man! I think he’s pretty decent sized!” I said. Joe agreed. We then agreed it would be easiest if both the animals were together. Regretfully we had to drop my goat off a few drops and drag him across the face of the mountain a small bit and roll him down. I learned how sharp those horns are as he kept trying to roll and my calf would catch a horn in it. We got him out of the ravine and let him go and hoped for the best. As he rolled and disappeared out of sight we held our breath. To our astonishment he rolled down the exact same snow patch and both goats were resting nicely within 10 feet of each other! We rolled a several hundred foot strike!
As we walked back to grab our packs, we were in disbelief. It was sunny, about 1pm in the afternoon and we had two big billys down. We got to the goats and knew we had to get them broken down without wasting too much time so we could start our journey back. We had the perfect area to break down. Clear skies, slight breeze, goats on a snow patch and a small creek right next to us. As we began the work of caping and de-boning the animals it pained us to cut through the capes but we knew we were behind the time curve and would be maxed out with the weight as well. We would have what was left of today and then tomorrow to make it out because we had to be at work the next day. With where the goats ended up coming to rest, we were positioned to go out a different way than we came in. I have made this mistake before and said I wouldn’t do it anymore, but honestly the way we came in was so terrible I sort of knew we would most likely come down at least a slightly different route, but this would be completely different. It was 5 o’clock and time to get a move on. We sat the packs up on end, cinched all the straps as tight as they could go, and started laughing with a worried tone, wondering just how heavy these packs would be. We sat down, put our arms through the loops, buckled the waist straps, chest straps, and checked the load lifters. We rolled to our side, in order to get on all fours. Once we made it there it was time to stand. As we went to stand up you could hear the pack straps stretch, the bag sag, and reality set in. These were no joke, heavy packs. I had always talked about wanting to “double up” on a sheep hunt and have heard stories of the mental and physical grind. Now we got the honor to test ourselves at how well we could suffer. Within two steps the hip flexors were barking and multiple re-adjustments to the packs were made. “Oh man, we are in it now” I said. Followed by many cheesy statements like “Lightweight baby!”, “Who’s gonna carry the boats?!” and “Easy money!” trying to convince our minds that our bodies were fit for this duty.
Day 4- September 2- To Infinity and Beyond!
After walking over basketball sized jagged rock and runs of shale dinner plates we made it to the first big decision point and decided to take a pack break. We had seen this side of the valley on the first day but similar to the plane experience, what was seen from afar, wasn’t equating to reality up close. We were faced with two options. The first choice was to drop over this ledge that we would not see the bottom of but seemed like there was a way to pick our way down. I advocated for this route initially but Joe was skeptical. The second was to walk way up this steep and long ridge almost to the top of this mountain and drop into this bowl at the head of the valley. “Well, let’s leave our packs here and go scout this ridge to make sure it actually does have a route into the bowl.” Joe said. So we walked up the rocky ridge for about 30 minutes until we got to a vantage point to see that it did seem it would drop us into the final bowl that we needed to get to. As we walked back down and I was looking down the other route looking for any way to convince Joe. We got to the packs and I dreadfully began putting on my bag when Joe said, “ You know I was thinking, it seems like we should be able to pick our way down this.” That was enough for me, before he had time to change his mind I said “Yeah me too!” and started motioning that way. To better describe the situation it was a somewhat steep face that had long runs of tall grass, followed by these alder infused ledges. It was grassy slope, alder ledge, grassy slope, all the way to the bottom. A long series of “steps” if you will. The bottom seemed so close, like we should be down in 30-45 min close. So over the embankment we went. Despite the perfect weather, the steep slopes, paired with heavy packs we were both slipping and tripping down the slopes. We got to the first ledge and were able to just sit down and kind of slide down. Sweet, that wasn’t too bad I thought. One thing that was tricky about this was my bow was on the outside of the back of my pack. So everytime I fell I tried hard to fall on my side or straight on my butt and not fall backward on it. As we moseyed we ledges seem to be getting bigger. We were now using the alders as an anchor and using them to help lower us down the cliffs, still we continued. Still thinking, man, we are getting close. As our legs became tired, the falling increased. There wasn’t much communication back and forth other than, “This looks like a good spot” or “How’s it look over there?”.
Joe had disappeared in front of me through some alders, got tangled up and I heard him fall. I gave him space to get situated and he started scooting toward the ledge. This one seemed different I thought to myself. Joe paused and sat there for a second. I told him to hang tight and I was going to go look to the right. I went over and that was a sweeping ravine that cut back under where Joe was sitting. “Uh dude” I said. I don’t think we can go down that one, this ravine sweeps under that, that would be a huge drop.” Joe goes, “ Yeah I think I’m on top of a huge cliff, I’m coming back up to you.” As he stood up and walked up to me I saw something fall from his pack. “Uh ,dude.” I said. “Uhh, you broke your gun.” “What?! Are you kidding?! Wow, that really blows.” Joe’s new gun had literally snapped in half. I turned around in front of him to start hiking up and he said “Uh, dude. All your arrows are gone.” On the way in I had my rain cover on keeping the arrows protected. On the way out with the nice weather, I hadn’t put my cover on and between all the falls and alder jungles, the mountain had swiped all my arrows. We hiked up for about 5 minutes to try to see where we were at and make a plan. Instead of straight down, because that wasn’t an option anymore, we decided to spice things up a bit and add side-hilling in as well. Joe came up with a new route and we started heading that way. I could feel the tired start creeping in, but we kept trekking on. A short while later, we came to a small flat ledge, next to a running creek. “Dude, I hate to wave the white flag but how about we camp here, next to water, and a small piece of flattish land” I said. That was met with a moment of silence. “ Man it’s only 7, we have at least another hour of light, I think we should keep pushing. We don’t know what tomorrow holds and today is already taking way longer than we thought.” Joe responded. I agreed to have a quick snack break and keep going. The side hill venture continued and the new route proved to be increasing in steepness. Joe struggled to get through the newest batch of alders and then disappeared into the thickness. I followed up. I also struggled, then I slipped, racked myself, and fell backwards. I pulled myself upright and a broken branch poked me right in the eye. I was now high centered with an alder branch in between my legs and an eye I couldn’t even open. I struggled for a minute to try to get going, then I heard “ Are you coming?!” I was like dude, I’m high centered, racked myself and stabbed my eye, I’ll be there in a few.” “ Nevermind, let’s just go back and camp this way gets even worse” Joe said. “I’m sorry man, I was literally upside down and backwards there for a second.” I said.
We headed back to the campsite, plopped the bags down and began to unpack without many words. I grabbed water from the creek, we set up the tent, and we fired up the jet boil to get water going. About halfway through the meal that we were eating, with a healthy amount of distance between us, I sheepishly said “ Should we talk about tomorrow?”. I felt like I had just had an argument in my marriage and we needed to unify and heal. Truthfully we did. We were doing good, but if we had got mad at each other and quit working together, things would have gotten much worse. Joe said, “I dont think youre going to like this, but I think we have to go all the way back up, hike the ridge, drop into the top bowl, and work our way down that way.” I was in complete agreement. It sucked, but I knew it was our only option. Truthfully, mentally I was doing good. In other hard hunts when I was younger, I had faltered and let emotions get in the way but I felt level headed and good with the plan. Tomorrow was going to take hard work, but I knew we could do hard work. I looked over the InReach maps that night and saw we were about 800’ down and the total face we were trying to get down was 1600’. Tomorrow we had our work cut out for us to go back up that 800’ and then up the long ridge. We made a plan with checkpoints. From the tent to the top of the ridge we guessed 3 hours. From the top of the ridge to the bottom of the bowl 1 hour. From bowl to river 2 hours. River to ocean 4 hours. Then Joe added in “the 10% rule” adding 10% to our estimated time. Ok, we have a 12 hour day ahead of us, we thought. It was nice to be able to mentally prepare for that kind of day. We WILL be home tomorrow. We wanted to get to the salt by 5pm so we set our alarms for 0430.
Day 5- September 3- Off We Go
I was doing fine until about 1am when I heard the rain start. It started light and slowly magnified to an absolute downpour. Then the doubts entered. We couldn’t even walk down the dry slopes, how in the world are we going to walk UP them now?! How is this even going to be possible? We have no bow, no firearm, no known way out and we have to get out tomorrow. The morning brought more bad news. The fog had joined the party, we couldn’t see the ridge, or the bottom. We agreed we didn’t want to hike through the fog again and end up in a scenario like the first day so we waited. During the wait we agreed we would have to do two shuttles in order to get the gear to the top. It would take a little longer but it was the no brainer choice. In a weird way I was kind of excited about it. Where I moose hunt we have to shuttle the whole thing down the mountain on our backs and while arduous, I knew I could shuttle for hours on end.
At 0645 the cloud broke enough to almost see the top. We both agreed now is our window. We had already eaten and had everything packed up except the tent. We loaded up the meat, the heaviest of the two loads, for our first trip. I turned on tracking to the shortest interval on my InReach and then up we went. We got to the top in just over 30 minutes. The fog was rolling in and out but we had a good route from the Inreach and were able to find the tent with no problem. We quickly broke down the water logged tent. We carelessly stuffed the soaking wet fabric into the bag and loaded up our packs for the second trip. Again we made it up at a similar time. We checked our watches and to our amazement, other than starting an hour and forty five minutes later than we had hoped, we were basically on schedule. Now we had made it to the top and Joe goes “What makes you think that the bottom of this bowl connects to the actual bottom? There’s a small part we cant see.” “Well, I don’t know, but what other choice do we have? I said. “Well if we get to the bottom of the bowl and we no joke are cliffed out and can’t make it, we would have to climb all the way back up here with these heavy packs, up the loose shale and start a two to three day journey all the way back to where we first started this trip.” Now that sounds terrible I thought. So Joe advised we should leave the packs and walk all the way down and scout out a route. While that seemed like quite the effort and time suck, the alternative was much, much worse, so down we went. I had been hoping this part of the trip would be “fast”. I was thinking of a nice soft, loose, Mt Marathon type shale run. Instead it was about 100 yards of that and then baseball to bowling ball sized slippery, unstable, jagged rock. The rock that would be painful when you fell, and fall we did. We got to the bottom and I went left looking for a route and Joe went right. My way indeed cliffed out. Now as I was walking to find Joe I was really hoping he had found a way. I see him jump over a raging, waterfall fed river back towards me. We met up, and he said he had found a route that we might have to slide down the last 10’ but we would figure it out. We hiked back up, slammed some water, loaded the packs up, and started the painfully slow descent down. Due to the rocks being wet and rolling so much we were clenched and moving slowly trying to avoid falling. I could feel the extra effort just draining the energy so fast. At one point we stopped and threw huge boulders into the river to build a sort of bridge to help us cross. We made it past there and got to the last drop. Joe found some triple braided halibut line on a non-load bearing carabiner in his pack. It was about 20’ long. We lowered the packs down, then ourselves. At this point Joe’s water bottle snapped from the impact of his pack getting hung up and then falling down the drop. Unfortunate, but we had made it to check point two. Now we were feeling the effort and the stark reality of the rest of the day set in. Here we pounded water and ate the rest of our food for the entire day with a “burn the ships” mentality.
From check point two to three was again supposed to be a quick jaunt. We would hike along the smallish creek and follow that until it disappeared into a gorge. From there we’d side hill what looked to be a small hill. We were even crazy enough to think we would see the ocean from the top of that hill and then be basically there, we had hope! To quote a friend who is going through some tough times in life lately, “Hope is a son of a bitch.” You need to have it to stay motivated or disciplined with whatever you’re after, but every time you get to where you think you should be and the goal isn’t accomplished, you have no choice but to choose hope and keep grinding. Failure or quitting isn’t an option. With the relentless rain chasing us quickly from our rest we started hiking alongside the creek to go find checkpoint three. Quickly we realized we’d either be sidehilling a cut bank causing us to move even slower or we needed to cross the creek. We kept attempting multiple different places but couldn’t find one without getting our boots wet. We were really close to getting across at one point and then all of a sudden down goes Joe, straight in the middle of the river on his back. Now this wasn’t something that was going to drown us but the fantasy of staying dry was over for him. There’s no getting up quickly when you’re stuck on your back in a river with a 100+ pound pack on your back. Surprisingly he didn’t get up swearing and angry, he just took it like a pro, and said something like “Well, im wet now.” Let’s keep moving. I felt so bad that just happened and so lucky to be out here grinding with such a stud, grateful we weren’t barking at each other and losing our minds. From checkpoint two to three we lost even more time, saturated with water and slow going terrain. We finally made it to the small hill and began to cut into the woods. It is hard to truly describe and I’m nowhere good enough of a writer to explain the next section of this hunt. The terrain in many ways was much worse than on the way in. We were trying to find game trails, a break in the brush or just anything to make the path easier, but nothing seemed to work. We were back into the 50 shades of green forest. Walking on a mossy floor that sometimes was stable and other times you would sink up to your knee in muskeg type terrain. We seemed to keep going up and down these small ravines. Each time we went up we were gasping for air and each time we went down we were basically just sitting down and letting gravity take its course to force us to slide down these mini drops and cliffs just to have to hike up another one immediately after.. At some point my water bottle also broke off my hip and I just had to laugh it off. How we were able to keep going came down to the supernatural. The whole time during this final days trek out I had a Brandon Lake worship song called Gratitude stuck in my head. I would sing his lyrics with my twist of “Oh come on my soul, oh don’t you get tired on me, lift up your voice, cuz you got a lion inside of those lungs, get up and praise The Lord.” Over and over and over. We couldn’t really go left or right from our course because to the right was a large mountain and to the left was a rushing river, we were stuck. Finally the river seemed to die down and we veered left after being sort of cliffed out. I remember we came down this hellacious drop and we both looked up and it was as if we had entered a new level of suck. We looked up and saw a small lake. All around this lake there was massive, old growth deadfall. Think Redwoods in Northern California deadfall, everywhere and as far as you could see, except green and covered in moss and old man’s beard. We start climbing over some, and then under some. It became like a confined space drill type obstacle course with 100-pound packs on. This was demoralizing. The more we did this chasing that sense of hope and we had to be close, the longer it seemed to drag on. We zigged and zagged through the forest starting to take turns leading and encouraging each other. The breaks became more frequent, and the light became less. I remember looking at my InReach at one point seeing we were roughly .6 miles away from the ocean. I told myself ok, picture yourself on your hands and knees with this pack crawling two laps around the track, you can do that, two laps and you’ll be out of this mess. I think it was an hour or two later I looked and the InReach now said .5 miles. I couldn’t believe it. What. In. The. World. Is going on. I’m not trying to be sappy here, just honest, but I remember at one point during a quick rest Joe saying, “Come on buddy, we got our wife and kids to get home to.” For some reason my eyes welled up for a second, probably just all the sweat pouring off my head…
We continued to push and mosey through the woods. The smell of rotting salmon entered my nose and I was delighted. At one point I remember seeing fresh, wet salmon on the trail, thinking, hmm I didn’t think the tide made it all the way up here. Not long after that we jumped a bear on the trail and luckily he was more scared of us since all we had were goat horns to try to defend ourselves with. The last quarter mile or so, all the small stream tributaries were flooded, the main river was louder and faster than I remember, everything was in flood stage. We were walking in ankle deep water in the middle of the forest, wet is an understatement. Then it happened we took our final steps out of that dreadful forest and we could see the salt again! It was over! We made it!
Day 5- September 3- Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures
We made it, right? Once we were to the ocean’s edge we dropped out packs in the tall grass that was holding 6” of water and realized we had come out on the opposite side of the river that we entered on. The boat, hopefully un-popped and operational, was on the other side about half a mile away. No problem, we were already wet and tired. We will just get wet and cross this river. Well the river had continued to rise, the rain hadn’t stopped and now it was in flood stages. We tried walking up stream to try to cross. We would just take one step that would go up to mid thigh and then our poles would disappear in the water as we probed for where our next step would be. No problem, we’ll go to the mouth of the river. There has to be a transition or sandbar from where it goes from river to ocean right? Well, as luck would have it, it was high tide. We couldn’t find any transition or sandbar to walk on. Joe pulled out his phone, and tried making the one bar of signal work, but no luck. I decided to walk out to the edge of the water and waive down boats as they were heading back into the harbor, no luck. We met up and Joe said we could swim across, I laughed and said, “Do you have a death wish? We will have hypothermia before we even get to the other side, what if we do that and then get to the boat and it’s popped or something?”. I suggested we could just set up the tent, albeit in water, and sit in it and wait for low tide and try to find a way then. Joe thought that was a crazier idea than trying to swim. We went back to probing the river again and me waving down boats that didn’t see me. Time was ticking, light was fading, cold was setting in. After a while Joe yelled “ Hey come here, I have a plan” I thought, what could he have thought of that we hadn’t already? He goes, in a stern tone “Here’s the plan. You have a dry bag? I have a dry bag. We are going to strip down to our skivvies, put all our puffy gear in our bags. We are going to seal them up. I’m going to tie them around my waist. Then we are gonna jump in this water and swim across, put on our dry puffys, find the boat, and go home.” I laughed and said no way. He interrupted and said, “That’s the plan!” and he started getting undressed. I paused and realized he was serious. “AHH I don’t like this.” I exclaimed. “I know neither do I, but we gotta do it.” he said with understanding.
As we began to prepare to swim, across the mouth of this glacial fed gray water, I was having a hard time wanting to take all my gear off. I was relatively warm and don’t like being cold. He was ready and I don’t think I had taken anything off but my pants. “I’m keeping my boots on.” I said. “You can’t swim with boots on,” he retorted. “I’m not swimming! I can’t swim to save my life.” I argued back. What he said next probably saved my life. He said, “What are you going to do if the water goes over your head? Take off your boots man.” I agreed to it, but I said I’m keeping my raincoat on. I think he was done trying to convince me. I sealed my bag, prayed it would stay dry, and handed it to him. He girth hitched that 20’ length of halibut line and carabiner around his waist, took a deep breath, threw the bags into the water ahead of him and swan dove in, hands over his head like he was jumping into a nice pool in Tahiti. I remember thinking well that’s definitely not how I thought that would go. His body disappeared into the water. I waited a few seconds and up he appeared further down and closer to being in the ocean than I expected, maybe only 100 yards now. He was struggling it seemed. He finally got over there and yelled, “ My shoulder is dislocated!!” I thought, well thats my sign, time to go help my buddy, and like a fool with a raincoat on and trekking poles in hand i took to big steps into the river and under I went. I remember coming up for air gasping, starting to choke on water, barely keeping my head up thinking, If I don’t quit this half assed paddling and swim with everything I’ve got I’m going to die. So I remember kicking as hard as I could, my arms were heavy and by the grace of God I made it to the other side. When I got to Joe I was making some awful noises, similar to ones that you make when the air is knocked out of you, and I remember him looking at me almost with disgust, saying with his eyes, “would you get a hold of yourself man and shut up”. At that point I had realized when I had my raincoat on I had cinched my sleeve cuffs tight as well as my waist and when I went under it filled my coat. My sleeves were still full when I got up to Joe and when I undid the velcro,and water rushed out. I then realized the stupidity of my decision and why my arms felt so heavy. After calming down, Joe told me he reset his shoulder before I got there, and we started putting on our puffys. I couldn’t believe how warm I was. In a matter of minutes of having puffy pants and coat on, gloves and a warm hat and crocs with no socks I was toasty. We waded through these rotten salmon infused streams and tried not to tear our clothes on the logs and trees as we made our way to the boat. We made it to the boat and both Thanked The Lord for keeping the boat safe from bears! We portaged the boat, the motor, the fuel tank and the patch kit to the water’s edge and fired up the ole Evanrude.
We took the boat out wide around the mouth of the river and started looking for our packs. I was riding on my knees on the bow so I could see. I specifically remember looking at a tree near them as we left them because I have lost my pack on tundra several times, they blend in surprisingly well. As we were looking for them so we knew where to land the boat Joe said, “Hey what’s that black thing, oh hey! That’s a bear, there’s a bear on our packs! He’s eating our goat!” As he said that the motor hit a rock, jarring us sideways, zig zagging in the water, me barely hanging on. We got to the edge and I began walking toward the bear yelling hey bear! Get out of here! Apparently that wasn’t good enough because once Joe landed the boat, out of the corner of my eye a blur of blaze orange came running past me, arms up to intimidate, yelling “Get outta here!!!” He went full primal, we both did. I would have chased that bear down if he had stolen our goat heads. Luckily he was near our packs tearing up a salmon but he wasn’t actually on our packs. Then we begrudgingly picked up the packs, got them in the boat and pushed off into the sea.
There weren’t many coherent words for the first 20 minutes of the boat ride back. It went kinda like this. “Bro”… “Dude”…”Man”…”Wow”.. Over and over. Eventually we talked about how no one will ever understand what this hunt was like. Words won’t do it justice. Our verbal story hardly does it justice. Just wow. We are so grateful. We are so grateful that at least we were successful and didn’t go through all of this for nothing. We are so grateful for our Loving Father, Jesus, for keeping us safe and getting us through it. We are so grateful to have had the opportunity to suffer. I think about how few people get to fight for their lives or even just push themselves to their limits and then further than they thought. It’s all still surreal.
