Jeff's "Mt. Goat" Hunt

Jeff had the opportunity to go with his brother Josh on a Mt. Goat hunt last week with 2 other guys. I was excited for Jeff to go for a number of reasons: 1- He would get to do this hunt with his older brother 2- It's his first big animal hunt since moving to Alaska (the whole reason we moved here is because he has always wanted to live here and so he could hunt, oh and of course go to school :) 3- Next summer Jeff really wont' get any time off being a new controller here so I wanted him to take full advantage of this past summer up here getting as much hunting and fishing in as he could. Now there were 2 reasons I didn't want him to go 1- he would be gone for our 3 year anniversary (so knowing this I decided to work the day of our anniversary so I wasn't sitting home missing him) 2- He has never left me where I haven't been able to get a hold of him or at least talk to him once a day. When he has gone bear hunting, or when I leave to go to Utah at least we are just a phone call away. This hunt was suppose to be a week-10 days or so and just knowing I could've gone that long with no phone call (because he would be clear on top of some mt. range with no service) made me nervous sick.
Well Josh came into town and the next day they took off to Valdez (5 hr drive). Then they would get in our boat with all their gear, take a 20-30 minute boat trip across the bay to the base of the Mt they would be hunting. They would set up their "base" camp at which point 1 guy would stay behind at (Roy didn't want to hunt, he just wanted to go along for the adventure) and Jeff, Josh and Justin would then get into a smaller inflatable boat and head up different river systems looking for a place to pull off to hike up the Mountain. I wanted Jeff to type up his version of the hunt cuz trust me, it was an experience I don't want him to forget about later ( but it's been over a week and I'm getting behind in my blogging, so his story to come later I guess) They hiked 5 hrs straight up hill/MOUNTAIN and set up camp for the night there. Josh and Justin went up a little more to spot for Goats, cuz the next morning was opening day. Sure enough they spotted 10 or so trophy size goats worth shooting so they new it was game on. Well the next day a storm rolled in, bringing the worst wind, rain and even snow to higher elevations and it pushed all the goats down the ravine and they never saw a single goat for the next 2 days. Meanwhile, in Anchorage the rain was so bad we had hellacious flooding and the wind knocked out power for some time (nothing compared to the wind storm we were just recovering from that left residents with out power up to 6 days and damage costing into the thousands). Needless to say there "7-10 day" hunt got cut into 3 days. But in the mean time, Josh did shoot a black bear... so I'm at least glad he didn't go back to Utah empty handed. He took so much time and energy to prepare for this hunt and I would've felt bad if he went home with nothing.

 

My very sexy hunter!!! Gosh I sure do love and adore him.

 

 

 

 

 

Jeff had an absolute BLAST and despite all the rain and wind he said he would go in again in a heart beat. Josh was able to get a few pics of there adventure. Sure glad they made it home and lucky for me I only had to go 2 days without hearing from my sweet husband. Here I was praying for his safety and he said all he could do was pray for me and he worried and missed me. I sure love him so much.

P.S. So since he got back into town eariler than expected he was here for our anniversary... but sadly I still had to work :( BUMMER!!!