Unit G518 (HD 518 — Mountain Goat)

FWP publishes no mountain goat success figure for district 518 that we can read back to this district alone, so none is quoted here. A Montana goat licence is once-in-a-lifetime, and this particular district asks more of a hunter physically than almost anywhere else in the state.

This is a backpack hunt, not a day hunt

There's effectively no road inside the line. The ways in are the trail systems off East Rosebud and West Rosebud and the Mystic Lake trail, and from any of them the goat country is several hours of climbing away. Plan to camp high and stay there. A hunter who commutes from a trailhead spends the two hours that matter most — first and last light — walking in the dark at 10,000 feet instead of behind a spotting scope.

Glass the cliffs from across the basin

Goats hold on rock that looks unusable and feed on the grass ledges and the heads of basins next to it. Take a position across a basin from the face you mean to watch, not above it, and settle in with a tripod for hours rather than minutes. Froze-to-Death Mountain, Mount Hole-in-the-Wall and Shepard Mountain give vantage onto broad faces without requiring a technical approach. A white animal on grey rock at two miles is easy; the same animal in late light on snow is not, so start glassing before you think you need to.

Judge the recovery before you judge the goat

The hardest part of this hunt happens after the shot. A goat shot in the wrong place slides, and on this ground it can slide into country you cannot reach or cannot get out of. Work out the fall line below any animal you're considering, and pass on the ones standing above a drop you wouldn't climb. That's the single decision that most often separates a filled tag from a lost one here.

Weather at 12,000 feet

The Beartooth plateau makes its own conditions and changes them quickly. Snow is possible in any month of the season, and a whiteout at this elevation takes away the glassing and the navigation at the same time. Carry what you need to sit still for a day without moving, keep a GPS track of your route in, and set a turnaround rule before you start climbing rather than while the weather closes.