Orthopedic surgery doesn't stop huntress from getting her goat

Climbing through jungle-like alder, straight uphill, past the treeline, into the rocky mountaintops favored by mountain goats is a tall order.

Especially if your foot is in an orthopedic boot.

But that’s exactly what Whitefish hunter Nanci Nicholson recently did, overcoming severe adversity with determination to bag her first mountain goat high above the Middle Fork Flathead River drainage.

Nicholson’s story stretches back to June, when she elected to have surgery to correct bone spurs on her right foot.

The complicated procedure involved four incisions, three on her right foot and one on her calf, to correct a chronically painful condition that she believes resulted from a lifetime of skiing, much of it competitive.

A substitute teacher for the Whitefish School District, Nicholson wanted the surgery to happen in the early summer, leaving her plenty of time to heal before school started again. But she kind of forgot about putting in for special hunting permits, something she has been doing since she started hunting at age 12.

Two days after her surgery, she learned that she had drawn one of only two mountain goat permits for a Middle Fork hunting district.

“I don’t think I would have had surgery if I had known about this,” Nicholson said, noting that after a successful drawing, a hunter cannot put in for special permits for seven years. “Really, the odds of doing that again are pretty slim.”

Her husband, Rob Nicholson, was flabbergasted. “When she drew the permit, I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me. Now? This year?,” he said.

Why couldn’t it have been a moose permit?

“That’s what I was thinking,” he said. “Couldn’t you draw something that’s on flat ground?”

For the next six weeks, Nicholson basically lived and slept in a recliner with her foot up to avoid any pain. The whole time she pondered whether a mountain goat hunt was even possible, and she had people telling her it wasn’t.

“I just said I have to be ready. I’ve got to try,” Nicholson recalls.

Because of that attitude, Rob started going out scouting for mountain goats on weekends, taking along his 15-year-old son, Keaton, and 12-year-old daughter, Haley.

“I spent 3 1/2 months scouting that area,” not only to find out where the goats were but also to find a place that would be most accessible to his wife.

By early August, Nicholson started therapy and by the end of the month she was off her crutches.

“If I would have had the whole summer, I would have been out hiking all summer to get in shape,” said Nicholson, who realized she would not be ready for the Sept. 15 start of the mountain goat season.

But by Oct. 3, it was time to give it a try.

Nicholson and her family set out on a scouting run in the Great Bear Wilderness, looking for goats in the vicinity of Great Northern, a peak that rises to 8,705 feet. The outing also was aimed at testing Nicholson’s foot.

Nicholson had a new pair of sturdy hiking boots that she tried on the way in, but after a mile she wasn’t comfortable. So she put on her trusty Cam Boot, a sort of soft-cast orthopedic boot.

They walked about three miles in, glassing the rocky ridges high above, but they didn’t see any goats. On the way out, Rob saw one using a spotting scope.

“He was way, way up there,” Nicholson said. “But he looked closer than he really was.”

After some deliberation, the family decided to attempt an approach. They found themselves going uphill in a dense thicket of alder. Nicholson found that she could move uphill easily in her sturdy, supportive boot.

After they cleared the alder and then the treeline, Nicholson’s kids were “encouraging mom the whole way,” she said. They spotted the mountain goat, still at least another 400 yards above them. But the ascent had taken about three hours and the group had to consider returning while there was still some light.

“We’re right in the heart of grizzly bear country up there, and we knew it was getting dark,” said Nicholson, who was spooked about returning through the alder. “We turned around and started walking back down. That was hard. [The goat] was close but so far away.”

Nicholson found that she could not walk well downhill in her stiff boot. She ended up scooting on her behind much of the way, occasionally hopping on her good leg.

 “She literally came off the mountain on her tail end, pretty much the whole way,” Rob said.

It was slow going, but she could move faster than one might think through the grassy areas. The family returned to their vehicle at about 10:30 p.m.

About a week later, on Oct. 13, Nicholson and her husband returned to the area, bringing along her father, long-time Whitefish resident Martin Hale, and a new game plan for a serious hunt.

“When we went back in we were prepared to spend the night,” she said. “I knew that’s what we had to do.”

But because of the steep rocky terrain, they didn’t anticipate being able to set up a tent. So Nicholson watched the weather carefully to pick a good day.

It took about five hours for the group to ascend above the treeline and get to a very small flat area where they could stay the night, and spend the next day scouring the area for a mountain goat.

“My foot did really well again,” she said.

After a sleepless night for Nicholson, the group set out in the morning, and it didn’t take long to find their quarry.

“We came up over a knoll and he was feeding up ahead of us about 100 yards,” Nicholson said.

But the billy goat was almost straight uphill, and Nicholson had trouble preparing to fire a shot from the prone position, because she couldn’t anchor her body on the steep slope. Rob dug his boot in the ground below her to serve as sort of an anchor for her foot.

Nicholson fired a well-placed shot from a 7mm-08 rifle, and was in for a surprise. The kick of the rifle drove the scope into her eye, she said, because she was shooting nearly straight uphill for the first time from an awkward position.

“I got scoped,” said Nicholson, who soon after learned she’d been cut above the eye, and she needed to make a second shot at the goat because it was attempting to get up.

Her husband scrambled for a bandage, and her dad found a makeshift way to clear blood from her eye. She fired again, and this time the goat took a tumble — about 1,000 yards down the steep slope, well out of sight.

But Nicholson and her partners didn’t know how far the goat would tumble, nor did they know what shape it would be in when they found it.

They began a slow descent, again with Nicholson again scooting on her behind and quite often, the men having to do the same.

“It took us about three hours to get down to him,” she said.

The billy goat was in remarkable shape for such a fall, sporting horns just over 10 inches long.

“He was big. I couldn’t even lift his head because I was so tired and he was so heavy,” she said.

The goat was found at about 1 p.m., and it took about seven hours to get him to the truck, with the men doing all the packing.

Nicholson found that she could move downhill quickly on her feet once she got into the alder.

“It was easier to hold onto the branches. It was like swinging through the trees, because (the brush) was way over our heads,” Nicholson said.

“I came out of the hunt amazingly well,” she added. “But I was exhausted by the time I was done. Every step, there was a lot of effort, because I had to think about it.”

The biologists at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks regional headquarters were impressed with the billy goat when the Nicholsons brought it in for a required inspection, but they were more impressed with the hunting story.

“If there was an award for determination and tenacity, it should go to this gal,” said wildlife biologist Tim Thier.

“It’s an incredible story of perseverance and a positive attitude,” said Jim Williams, regional wildlife manager. “One of the most difficult hunts that is available to hunters is a mountain goat hunt.”

Rob marvels at his wife’s determination.

“I’ve always been impressed with her, but I have to say she went above and beyond the call of duty in impressing me,” he said. “I don’t know many people who could go out and do what she did. I don’t even know if I could do it.”

Now that she’s had time to reflect on her incredible feat, it still seems a little unbelievable.

“Often times I think, did I really go through that,” she said. “To have it all pan out was pretty amazing. I knew I had to do it. I wouldn’t have another chance again.”

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.