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The Trouble With Goats
A snowy adventure high in the heart of the Canadian Rockies
Story and photos by Diana Rupp
“The trouble with goats,” said Ryan Damstrom, “is you have to kill them where they live.”
Ryan, a thirty-year-old veteran sheep and goat guide, made the comment cheerfully and mostly for my benefit, since he moved up and down mountains almost as easily as his quarry. He had set up his spotting scope atop a snow-covered boulder and he rested a gloved hand atop it as he spoke, studying the peak that loomed above us. Shin-deep in snow beside the boulder, clutching my binocular, I let my eyes travel up the spruce-timbered slope, then on up the open, snow-blanketed face that loomed above timberline to a small cave nestled in the base of a sheer rock cliff that jutted straight up to form the peak of the mountain.
In the mouth of that cave lay a mountain goat. It looked relaxed, with one front leg tucked beneath its body and the other outstretched as it chewed its cud and calmly surveyed its breathtaking world from an elevation of some nine thousand feet. In choosing the little cave —not much more than an overhang of rock—for its midday bedding spot, the billy had claimed the best location on the mountain. Not only did it have protection from the wind that knifed across the peak, but the goat could see anything approaching from below, and only another mountain goat, or perhaps Sir Edmund Hillary, could possibly approach from above.
 Ryan, outfitter Anna Fontana, and I had ridden some two and a half hours out of our snug log-cabin wilderness camp in southeastern British Columbia that morning, blessedly gaining a great deal of elevation on horseback. The snow from yesterday’s storm lay heavily on every branch and leaf. Each time my horse, Laredo, brushed a limb, small avalanches would cascade silently over his mane, across my jacket, and occasionally down the back of my neck.
We rode to the shoreline of a mountain lake whose crystal waters perfectly reflected the snowy grandeur of the Canadian Rockies, and I was so taken with the Christmas-card scene that I nearly forgot to look for goats. Fortunately, Ryan and Anna were not so easily distracted, and they thoroughly scanned the white peaks for white goats as I juggled camera and binocular. We were miles from any road, and the small sounds of the camera shutter and the saddle leather creaking on the backs of the dozing horses were swallowed instantly in the cavernous silence of the snow-blanketed wilderness.
Since we didn’t spot any goats from the lake shore, we mounted up again and rode around the lake to where we could see the peaks from another angle. There was no apparent trail and the brush was thick along the shoreline. Ryan’s long beard was powdered with white by the time we pulled up at the bottom of a ravine and slid to the ground. It was as far as we would ride; from here, the topography angled steeply upward.
I hadn’t even finished tying Laredo to the nearest tree when Anna, already glued to her binocular, said, “There’s a goat up there in that cave.”
I swapped my pac boots for hikers and down jacket for windproof fleece, lightening my clothing as much as I dared. We left the extra gear with the horses and hiked through the snow to the top of a bluff where Ryan set up his spotting scope to take a better look at the billy. As we glassed, he hatched a plan: He figured that if we climbed up to the timberline, we might be able to get a 300-yard shot at the goat from just inside the cover of the last line of trees. I looked at the mountain again and thought of the slog we’d had through the snow just to climb this little bluff, only a few hundred yards from the horses. But I’d certainly entertained no illusions when I booked this hunt; I knew full well that no mountain goat hunt is easy, for the very reason Ryan had just articulated so succinctly.
Although I had come prepared for any weather, I really hadn’t expected snow on this hunt. October was not even a week old, and just two days earlier we’d ridden into our backcountry camp on a warm autumn afternoon. But then we’d spent twenty-four hours snowbound in the cabins as visibility on the peaks deteriorated to zero and winter arrived with a vengeance.
Anna, her blond hair covered by a warm fleece watch cap, smiled at me over her binocular. Grinning back, I couldn’t help but appreciate her deep attachment to this area of southeastern British Columbia where her late husband, Bob, started the well-respected Elk Valley Bighorn Outfitters some twenty-seven years ago. Anna is a savvy organizer who possesses a vast knowledge of the country and its game thanks to her former profession as a provincial wildlife biologist, which she left some years ago to work full-time with Bob in the hunting business. Following Bob’s death in 2004, she took over the outfit and runs it ably. Her guide area holds not just striking scenery but also some of the finest and most diverse big-game habitat in the world. We’d already seen a big bull moose, herds of elk, a dozen mountain goats, several mule deer, Rocky Mountain bighorns, and a young grizzly that strolled through our camp during the snowstorm. But what had really brought me to this stunning area was the fact that these mountains hold the densest population of mountain goats found anywhere in North America. After only a few hours of searching, we’d already spotted the billy we were looking for.
Despite the fact that it was only our first full day of hunting, we didn’t even consider not stalking the goat. I’d already seen how things worked in the mountains this late in the year: If we were unlucky, another snowstorm or even heavy fog could shut down our hunting for the remainder of the week. In this country, you have to make the most of the days you’re given. In other words, hunt goats while the sun shines.
Moments later, Ryan packed up his spotting scope and was making tracks through the spruce timber. I slung my Sako Finnlight .280 across my back and followed, staying in the trail he broke as Anna followed right behind.
I pushed myself, determined stay up with Ryan, taking advantage of small trees and branches to pull myself up the slope when I could. I hadn’t been working out all summer for nothing. Soon my insulated gloves were soaked with sweat, and I switched to wool ones, which quickly became caked with snow. I could have used a drink of water, but the tube from the water bladder in my daypack had long since frozen solid. I stuffed the bite valve down my shirt, where it thawed just enough to give up a drop or two of liquid and quickly re-froze. I concentrated then on the climb, trying to think about only one step at a time to avoid being intimidated by the mountain. More than an hour later I started to see glimmers of light through the spruce boughs ahead. We were approaching timberline.
Ryan paused and knelt in the snow. I dropped down beside him and we both looked up. A few dozen yards ahead of us, the trees ended and the snow-covered, open face of the mountain slanted steeply up toward the sheer rock cliff. I couldn’t quite see the cave.
“I can’t see that goat from here,” Ryan whispered, “but we should get into a spot where we can get a shot just about any time.” I nodded and followed as he continued uphill, making sure to stay right on his heels.
The trees thinned without giving us a view of the goat. Ryan paused at the last tree, glassed carefully, and then moved out onto the open face. It was like stepping through a doorway from a dim room into daylight. In a few steps we left behind the shelter of the tall spruce and lodgepole and found ourselves on a steep, exposed slope. Here, the snow was a blessing; knee-deep now, it anchored me on what would have otherwise been slippery, treacherous footing. The wind blasted into my right cheek, driving sand-size particles of snow before it.
With every step, I felt the vista opening up, and, even at the risk of falling behind Ryan, I had to pause and glance over my shoulder. I was rewarded with a goat’s-eye view of the world: The lake we’d ridden around lay far below like a black jewel, surrounded by glistening white, knife-edged peaks that seemed to stretch to the far corners of the world. The vista sent a surge of joy through me. I took a deep breath and pushed on, catching up with Ryan at a lone, wind-blasted, six-foot spruce tree that was somehow clinging to life on the open face.
We could see the cave now, a dark, empty opening in the cliff face almost directly above us. It was like looking up a wall at a small hole where a mouse might live. But Ryan was shaking his head in puzzlement.
“The goat’s not there,” he said. “He’s moved. Maybe he crossed over the ridge to join those nannies we saw earlier. If we go on up the ridge, we should be able to roll over the top and take a look.”
I almost never question a guide, but I couldn’t shake one nagging doubt. “Isn’t it possible,” I suggested, “that he’s still tucked inside the lip of the cave, and we just can’t see him because we’re looking straight up?” The smooth, apparently trackless snow in front of the cave was also bothering me.
But Ryan shook his head again. He was convinced the goat had moved. “I don’t think he’s there, or we’d be able to see him from here. Let’s go take a look over that far ridge.”
That meant continuing the dizzying trek across the open face, but my drive to kill a goat, wherever it might be, was overpowering. “OK, I’m right behind you,” I said. And I was, for about fifty yards. But the high-altitude walk through the knee-deep snow was starting to take its toll, and I began to lag a bit.
Unknown to me, Ryan was mulling over my remark about the goat possibly still being in the cave, and, on a whim, he decided to get closer just to make sure. Even if the goat wasn’t there, he figured we’d look for tracks leaving the cave, which would tell us which way it was heading. So he took a sudden 45-degree turn upslope. I was about fifteen feet behind him, concentrating too hard on my footing, when Ryan suddenly shouted something about a goat and wanting me to shoot it.
Glancing up, I saw the billy less than fifty yards away and looking positively enormous, making its way slowly across the base of the sheer rock cliff, just starting to angle upward. Ryan was directly between me and the goat—a problem, but I had a more immediate one: My rifle was still slung across my back.
I dropped to my knees in the snow and clawed my way out of the sling, then ripped off the scope caps. Ryan, realizing he was in my line of fire, tobogganed back down the slope, skidding to a stop beside me in a puff of snow. Trying to shoot straight uphill played havoc with my kneeling position, so I leaned against Ryan to steady myself, looked through the scope, and saw . . . nothing.
I stared at the scope in disbelief—the lenses were covered with condensation that had formed inside the scope caps, but I still should have been able to see through them. As I wiped frantically at the scope, Ryan reached over and calmly turned the magnification down from 8 to 2.5. I cursed my rookie mistake but quickly cleared my head. I got steady again, and now found the goat easily in the scope, a bright white target against the brown cliff, climbing slowly and deliberately--confident, no doubt, that nothing could follow.
And almost nothing could—except a bullet. My first hit was solid, right behind the shoulder, but I saw no reaction from the goat. I cranked the bolt and immediately put a second shot right beside the first; the billy, now having trouble with its footing, turned directly away, and I finished with a Texas heart shot. At that, the goat sagged, dropped, and rolled gently some ten yards down to the base of the cliff.
 Ryan roared with glee, we high-fived, and he rushed up the slope to examine the trophy. I unloaded my rifle, gathered my gear, and stood up as the adrenaline drained away, surprised to discover that my legs were shaking and the wind had a frigid edge I hadn’t noticed before. Anna, who had waited at timberline, shouted congratulations from below and started up to join us.
I made my way up to Ryan and the goat, stopping briefly to peer into the goat’s snug little cave, where it had been all this time. I noted with interest that when the goat had spotted us, it hadn’t panicked—it was used to danger coming from below, and apparently had supreme confidence in its ability to climb out of harm’s way.
“It’s a great goat,” Ryan enthused when I got to him. Its jet-black horns were almost perfectly matched; back at camp, we’d measure them at 9¼” with 5½” bases. The annular rings told us the billy was eight and a half years old. But I was most thoroughly taken with its lush coat—the white fur was beautiful and luxuriant, longer and softer than the finest sheepskin.
I dug myself a shelf of snow so I could sit with my goat on that precarious perch, bury my cold hands in its fur, and finally take the time to study the tremendous view that the goat had surveyed for most of its lifetime. The unpredictable weather in the mountains made itself felt: One minute the sun shone, and the next a miniature gale swirled snow around us. My face was so cold when I grinned for photos I felt as if my cheeks might crack. While Ryan skinned the goat, palm-size chunks of ice cracked off the cliff above, clattered down, and pelted us.
 When the work was finished, we stuffed the goat hide in Ryan’s pack and I loaded his spotting scope and other equipment in my own. Anna gave the skinned carcass a boot and sent it rolling down the mountain. Ryan and Anna caromed happily after it, and I butt-tobogganed after them at a somewhat more cautious pace. We stopped at the bottom to quarter the goat in preparation for lashing the meat behind our saddles, and when we finally reached the horses late in the afternoon, we were still giddy with success. I found to my embarrassment that my legs, which had so faithfully carried me to the top of the mountain, suddenly lacked the strength to propel me into the saddle. I had to lead Laredo to a fallen log and crawl awkwardly onto his back, much to the amusement of my companions.
The trouble with goats may be, as Ryan said, having to hunt them where they live. But up on the high, lonely peaks the goat calls home, a hunter experiences not just the thrill of pursuing a worthy quarry and the satisfaction of meeting a physical challenge, but the pure joy of spending a few hours in one of the world’s harshest and most beautiful places. It’s well worth the trouble.
For more information about this hunt, contact Anna Fontana at Elk Valley Bighorn Outfitters: 406/782-2382 or Jack Atcheson & Sons.
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