Old World Mountains

Mountain hunting is much the same the world over. You’re going to climb in high, thin air, your heart pounding, your lungs bursting, your legs screaming. You’ll glass until your eyeballs nearly fall out. The reward is you are going to see some of the world’s most beautiful country, and if you climb high enough, and glass well enough, you’re going to see some of the world’s most beautiful creatures.

Hunting mountain game is not for sissies. Properly, it’s probably best for people who have no idea when to quit. This applies to all mountain hunting, in all mountain ranges blessed with one or another breed of wild sheep or goats, of which there are many. There’s nothing quite like our homegrown North American sheep and our pure white goat, but the long-horned sheep and ibex of Asia deserve their legend. New Zealand’s tahr and chamois may not be native, but there are no mountains on Earth steeper or more treacherous than the Southern Alps. I’ve hunted them all and keep going back for more, but perhaps, surprisingly, I have long found some of the world’s most enjoyable high-country hunting in the mountains of Europe.

The Old World has been heavily occupied by humans for a long time. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, mankind and European wildlife coexist well. The pockets of habitat are generally smaller, and wildlife management is the most intensive in the world. Some hunting on the European continent is, well, predictable. Permits are generally allocated by age class, and the gamekeepers have a pretty good idea where Henry the red deer or Herman the roebuck might be feeding and when it is their time to go. This system doesn’t go out the window with mountain game, but it changes because a hunter must still defeat the mountain before he meets his prize.

Rags And Riches
Europe’s only wild sheep, the mouflon, is most at home in forest and foothill, not high Alpine. However, if Europe is lacking in the Ovis genus, she was enriched by the Capra clan, the wild goats. There are two primary varieties, the chamois (genus Rupicapra, rock goat), and the ibex (genus Capra, true goat). If you accept that there are four different breeds of ibex in Spain, plus the significantly different Alpine ibex, plus the kri kri ibex native to Cyprus, then Europe has six different ibex. She also has five (some say six) different races of chamois.

Some of these are very distinctive, while the differences of others are subtle. Whatever, you have to be a long-gone mountain nut to want to hunt them all. But all offer interesting hunts, and don’t forget the Great Secret: All of these are goats, and thus, for unknown reasons, none are valued as highly as any wild sheep. This means that, in the mountains of Europe, a great variety of mountain game is both available and comparatively affordable. I have understood this for many years, and in those years I have taken Alpine chamois in Austria; Alpine ibex in Switzerland; Gredos and Beceite ibex, and Pyrenean chamois in Spain; kri kri ibex in Greece; and Balkan chamois in Macedonia. All were wonderful hunts, combining the serious effort of mountain hunting with the traditions and ceremony of our sport in Europe.