Goat recovery on a rope...

[GrantK]

We arrived back at the top right as the tagholder made it to the top from the other side, I'll leave photos of him out as he is a little too recognizable, suffice it to say he was a bit shocked we already had the goat out of the hole... it worked out well, there was almost no spoilage, which was good as my non-hunting climbing partners were not really down with a rotten goat...

We were able to pile the goat into our packs along with our gear and make it back to the truck by noon, altogether a good adventure and confirmation that rope accessed big game hunting is feasible, I have a couple of elk spots that I’m now considering a rappel out of as the easiest way to get an elk back to the truck, it hasn’t got tested yet because I keep finding easier elk but one of these years I’ll get desperate enough and have some pictures of a free hanging 400’ rappel with an elk in tow.

 

[bennirio]

After seeing these post I know I'm not a true big game hunter now.

 

[Southern Elk]

Wow! Unbelievable!

 

[GrantK]

You guys are f'n! Nuts! That is absolutely incredible! Couldn't you guys find any other ones or just wanted a challenge? That's awesome! Thanks for sharing.

Ha, there are a thousand spots I'd hunt in this area before that one but it's the only one you can sleep in a real bed and hunt so it gets pounded...the hunter on this one never talked to me until he had a dead goat...

 

[Schism]

I couldn't help but notice the dents covering the orange helmet...

Great pics and story!

 

[JohnCushman]

Holy $hit!!!!

 

[GrantK]

That's amazing. I'm glad you took photos. Can't image what some snow and ice would to a recovery like that.

Suffice to say, you're skill and risk tolerance are in a completely different league.

In this case I would have loved some snow and ice to keep rockfall down, that is why we unroped while cutting, the rope was knocking all sorts of rock loose...
in fairness though I'm more comfortable in crampons than I am in flip-flops...
I'm a little disappointed that we didn't do a better job documenting it now, there were some cool parts that have no photos...
risk tolerance is relative, I'm probably safer at that goat than I am behind the wheel, just time in that environment.

 

[BigHornRam]

Love it! Goat hunting ain't for sissies!

 

[GrantK]

All I can think of, is WTF was he thinking shooting one there! Nothing in the pic is recoverable and unless you're shooting 12 ft spears and pin it to the ground!

he shot it over the ridge to the left and it made it through the saddle, the hit was a little far back... I agree though, not a lot of good outcomes there...

 

[Deleted member 28227]

After taking some photos to make sure we headed down the proper gully we walked around the top of the cliff, dropped off a ton of gear, helmeted and harnessed up, and found a large boulder to anchor to…

the top of the gully the goat had dropped into, I need some lessons from @wllm1313 to capture how steep it actually was...

Any pics or a description of your anchor.

How much gear did you have to haul in?

 

[GrantK]

Any pics or a description of your anchor.

How much gear did you have to haul in?

unfortunately, the anchors were one of the things I forgot to take a single picture of, for the top anchor we found a nice protruding rock horn about 4' in diameter and 3' tall that we wrapped with the rope and backed it up to a 3 cam anchor in a chossy crack, for the anchor we hung the goat off of and used as fall protection while we were at the bottom we got some smallish offset nuts in an actually good crack.
we brought the kitchen sink as we weren't sure what we were getting into...the first description was a 1000' cliff... I think a single set of cams from.5 to 6, a set of pitons, 2 sets of stoppers, 2X70 meter ropes, a set of jumars each, a couple of pullys... if I was going into it as something to take along just in case a single set of stoppers, a rope, and a microtrax would probably do it for 90% of real-world scenarios...

 

[rwc101]

I thought I was going to die two weeks ago shimmying down a 20ft ice patch to recover my blaze orange hat that got blown off.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Great job recovering that goat! I bet the hunter was one happy guy.

 

[marksjeep]

Awesome!

 

[Irrelevant]

All I can say is wow, and I hope you keep sharing more of your adventures!

 

[andrew11]

That was awesome!! Pretty wild country. Glad you decided to post up the pics and your part of the story.

 

[Wallydeuce]

Good lord. I got vertigo reading it.

Loved the story!

 

[BrentD]

Awesome. That guy owes you hugely. Beyond hugely! Without you, he's out an all but impossible to repeat tag, tons of money, and time and nothing to show but blisters.

 

[rmyoung1]

Ummm…. No way. I’ve been on three goat hunts, but no. Not a chance

 

[woods89]

Wow. You win........