Sunday, March 27, 2011

Snake River Canyon Mountain Goats

Years ago my wife and I got to spend a week in Glacier NP. It was an awesome trip. Some of the most memorable things from that trip were our chances to get up and close with the mountain goats. Ever since then they've always been sorta special. I knew they introduced mountain goats into the snake river canyon between Jackson and Alpine years ago. Even had people tell me about seeing them close to 10 years ago. Not sure why we never went for a look before. My wife ran across some recent internet posts about people seeing the goats. Then the paper had a picture of them. Saturday turned out to be a good day to go and see if we could find them.

We saw quite a few little ones.
We saw this guy when we first arrived zig zagging up towards the goats.


Probably keeping a watchful eye on the coyote.


I think this is a golden eagle?


My son spotted this one about 20 minutes after our arrival. He was just sunning alternating his look between the goats and the road.


This was laying about 20 feet from the coyote. I know it is part of life but baby goats are just so cute.


Farther down the canyon we found some more just hanging out watching traffic.


Really wish I had bigger lens!







It was a long drive to go and see them but well worth it. We saw at least 3 different groups through out the canyon easily over 20 mountain goats. Not sure how long they will be down close to the road but we will probably be back. Now if Yellowstone would just open, we could take a few more wildlife viewing road trips.

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