Goat hunting Alaska

My Last Two Resident Goat Hunts

My Last Two Resident Goat Hunts

Almost every year during the 70’s and the early 80’s I went mountain goat hunting the third weekend in September.  For some reason that weekend was usually cool, crisp and invigorating.  There were a few exceptions with brutal storms that I have already written about.  We were never really prepared for those storms but we survived.  Overall I went on as many goat hunts as sheep hunts but some of the sheep hunts in the later years were much longer in duration so I spent more days in the mountains chasing sheep.  

Gulch Creek

Gulch Creek

Gulch Creek has a special place in my hunting memories.  Not only was it a gorgeous game filled little valley, but it provided access to Walker Creek and Falls Creek.  I killed my first big game animal, a mountain goat, my first black bear, my first animal with a bow, another mountain goat, and it was where I slept overnight without a sleeping bag for the first time and more than likely the first time that I almost died climbing a cliff.  There were many of those times.

Mountain Goat-My First Big Game Animal

Mountain Goat-My First Big Game Animal

Since mountain goats are cliff dwellers I feel they are the most dangerous big game animal to hunt in Alaska, especially if you are hunting them with a bow.  I have been in more precarious spots climbing after goats than I have climbing after sheep.  That being said I have been in on more goat kills with my friends than any other big game animal.  A total of 36 goats between the Gulch Creek area and another area we hunted.  Even though it was dangerous it was a quick cheap hunt for my military friends and me.

Some of the pictures aren’t the quality of the ones in my other stories.  I was using my wife’s Kodak “Brownie Hawkeye” camera that her parents gave her when she was in the 8th grade back in 1958.  That was our only camera the first four years of marriage.

With that, let’s go goat hunting!