Mountain Goat Madness

You don't have to climb high for goats in southeast Alaska because the mountains rise right off the sea, but the weather is something else. As Cameron Hopkins and I left the Haines airfield in Larry Benda's truck, the radio warned of an impending storm that would bring 20-foot seas to the coast and 40-knot gusts to the mountains--plus blizzard conditions above 2,000 feet.

And while the mountains may not be terribly high, they're no less worthy of respect. "Goats live where you can get hurt," Larry told us in his fluent, Czech-accented English, referring to a hunter who had fallen into a crevasse the year before. "Very hard to get there. They just made a cross to put in the cemetery."

The first place we tried to hunt was a no-go. Whitecaps on the lake, fog shrouding the peaks. Larry, a guide in the area since 1996, had an alternative.

"It is a good place to see goats," Larry said of our option, a sandbar in Chilkat River, "but it is a bad place to spend time because it is exposed to the southwest storms and is too steep above 1,200 feet to set a tent. In good weather, we can bivouac; a blizzard would be uncomfortable up there."

Despite the oncoming storm, we headed to the Chilkat, and sure enough we spotted goats.

"They're higher than I thought they'd be," Larry said with a frown. "And they're moving toward the north face, where it is dangerous to go. They must be sensing this storm." He turned to us. "What do you wish? Camping there will be hazardous, and we probably won't get to them before dark. The going will be slow, especially with all this snow." We'd come to hunt, so we fitted our boots with crampons and began the ascent. The brush hung heavy with snow, and I kept my rain gear on in an attempt to stay relatively dry. Up, up we struggled. The slope steepened. I realized why Larry had insisted on lashing my rifle to my pack; I needed both hands for climbing.

We crossed a deep gorge. "Watch the big rocks," cautioned Larry. "Crampons just slip on them." The thick frosting of snow hid the rocks, and sometimes we fell. "You must pay attention after creek," Larry said simply.

The opposite bank was nearly vertical and led to more open country. We'd seen it from the bottom; it looked no more inviting from the creek. Alders rimmed vertical rock ledges as tall as elephants. We had to probe for ways up between the slabs. I concentrated on each step. Even places that promised a short free-fall were dangerous, as there was too little brush now to arrest a tumble.

Surprisingly, the weather held, and at one o'clock we called a conference. We had climbed to about 1,400 feet, a little over halfway to the goats. We'd long ago passed the last wooded place, the last spot to pitch Larry's small tent. Darkness would come at five; we'd have to be dug in or be off the steep places by then. Larry pointed out that if the promised storm came, traveling would be hazardous in the dark and that weathering 40-knot gusts on this face would be a test.

"What if we push another half-hour?" I suggested. "That will give us nearly four hours to get down." Larry and Cameron agreed. We climbed on.

The face had become alarmingly steep in places, but I also saw that we were not far from where we'd seen the lowest goats. In one particularly difficult spot, I took my cautious time, giving Larry a few minutes to check on the weather via his satellite phone.

"Same report," he said. "Strong winds tonight, with 100 percent chance of rain. Blizzards at this elevation." Here, the sky was eerily open, the breeze almost too light to notice. He tapped his watch. "Time to go, but we take one more look next bench."

We did, and there, 350 yards upslope, a nanny and a kid stared down. It was heartening but not a mandate to climb. They would vanish in the rock and leave us scrambling futilely to catch up. And this was the mating season, so we should have seen a billy with them; we didn't.