Wandering Mountain Goat

[oldranger]

Dry River Canyon, about 18 miles e. of Bend just off Highway 20 will be closed tomorrow for the next several months to enhance raptor nesting. The big attraction of the canyon for the last couple of months has been a Mountain Goat that seems to have made the canyon its home for the winter. This morning Kathy and I decided that we should take a hike and get a glimpse of this creature that must be close to 180 miles from its home range in the Elkhorn Mountains (w. of Baker, OR). So we joined hundreds if not a thousand or more people this beautiful Sunday. There were at least 30 cars at a trailhead designed for a half dozen and people were rotating in and out constantly.

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It was great to see families out. Sometimes it was clear that there were 3 generations in one party! At any rate about a half an hour in we got our first glimpse of the goat near what appeared to be the north rim of the canyon.

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After taking a bunch of photos we headed out. The canyon, about 3.5 miles in length, has more going for it than just the goat. It has great old Juniper snags, lots of lichens, and my favorite

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After returning to the 4 Runner we headed east a couple of miles to a canyon overlook where we discovered that the mountain goat was only about 2/3 of the way to the top of the north rim! Our distance from here was so far away that photos of the goat were not worth sharing. So we headed home and about 12 miles east of Bend we were confronted with this view:

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A nice day counting down the time for my next Sierra visit. For some action views of the mountain goat on a day it was a little more active see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ashrunner/ ... otostream/

Mike

[markskor]

Mike,
Nice report and photo essay!
When I first saw the title though, I thought it was going to be your autobiography, not about a four-footed creature.

[maverick]

Hi OR

Thanks, enjoyed the photo's and the write up, pm sent. Mav

[oldranger]

mark,

Kind of thought you'd say something! Considered really misleading you by titling the report "wandering old goat" but then I have no idea how old the goat is!

Mike

[hikerduane]

I didn't think a real goat was involved too.

[rlown]

i'm still wondering why you can get a great pic of a mountain goat with a telephoto, and not of the two nymphs at the lake..

[oldranger]

Russ,

The ladies were shot with little panasonic, goat was with slr with telephoto. Besides my hands weren't shaking.

Mike

[Bad Man From Bodie]

Got My Goat......