Charlie Threadgill’s mountain goat lay at the foot of a path measured in months and in miles. It was a surreal element of an ongoing journey that will always be part of who he is. It will be part of the stories his children hear, part of what they see him do, part of what he will show them can be done.
“My brother and I grew up hunting,” Charlie said. “We always had a passion for it as kids and it is very much a part of who we are now.”
As boys, Will and Charlie Threadgill came to hunting through their father James, a native of Columbus who graduated high school there in 1972 before proceeding to earn a degree from Ole Miss, then later entering a long career with Cadence Bank. The demands of his growing career resulted in many moving vans and lots of new schools. The family, which ultimately numbered four, made stops in Vicksburg, Jackson and along the Gulf Coast, crisscrossing the state as his prospects rose and life went on. The family found itself in Tupelo for a second stop the year the boys, today 38 and 37 respectively, arrived in the ninth and eighth grade, and they went on through high school graduation there in each case.
“Tupelo has turned into such a phenomenal community,” Charlie, now of Denver, said. “I’m proud to say that I’m from Tupelo.”
When he initially moved to Colorado, Charlie was excited to bring his hunting background along. He and his brother, who now lives in Memphis, had grown up hunting their home state of Mississippi, and Charlie was excited to see his own pursuits expand like the Western skies.
His explorations of what the Mountain West has to offer began with extensions of what he knew, so he hunted mule deer and elk, but he soon found himself inducted to the deeper realms and stronger mysteries of Colorado’s wildlife. Healthy populations of both Rocky Mountain and desert bighorn sheep, Shiras moose and mountain goat are hunted in Colorado also, experiences whose bounds lie far beyond the limits of traditional game. While there are provisions that allow a tightly-limited few tags for each to be drawn by nonresidents, the very low percentage of such an undertaking effectively leaves their pursuit to Colorado residents alone. So, in addition to his regular hunting licenses, Charlie, whose occupation is in the construction contracting business, began entering the resident draw for these tags shortly after moving to Colorado in 2015.
These tags routinely require many years’ accumulation of preference points to draw. Some, though not necessarily “once in a lifetime” tags per se, are so practically difficult to draw they might as well be. Mountain goat tags are so. Preference points are earned in lieu of a successful draw. They accumulate steadily year by year.
Typically those attempting to draw these tags begin to seriously expect results after 20 years, which meant it was a surprise when Charlie drew a mountain goat tag in only 10.
“Lo and behold, the same year I drew the goat tag, my wife, who has been an incredibly good sport, was pregnant with our first child,” Charlie said. “She was having the baby in July and the goat season was going to run Sept. 2 to Oct. 2 of 2025.”
The unit in which the goat tag had been drawn, G6, is a wilderness unit with no motorized access allowed, so Charlie would have to stay in the wilderness for the duration of the hunt to have any chance, leaving him far from anything happening at home.
Charlie’s wife insisted he could not squander the opportunity, so he used that endorsement and encouragement as part of his motivation to make it count. Charlie is an exceptional athlete and in extraordinarily good shape. He’s a runner of ultramarathons, and he had the biggest one of his life set to step off now.
Hunters in Unit G6 hike in from the public trail head and travel north of Vail. The unit is in the Gore Range of the Southern Rockies, about 40 miles due west of Denver. It covers an area of 628 square miles, all of it at an altitude of not less than 7,000 feet. The goat-bearing portions lie much higher.
Charlie had lined up Flat Tops Wilderness Guides, of Gypsum, Colo., for scouting and glassing assistance, and two of their number met him at the trailhead outside Vail, Colo., Sept. 25. They started the hunt with the walk from there.
A hunter’s tale
With the goat season underway and set to close Oct. 2, the three set out Sept. 25 and began their climb toward Red Buffalo Pass, gaining nearly 4,000 feet of elevation in the course of eight miles. Considering they’d begun from a parking lot trailhead that stood 8,700 feet high already, even the easy part of the hike was not easy. From the trailhead, the ground on that trail leaps up to 11,746 feet in the first four miles, then keeps climbing, ultimately flirting with altitudes above 13,500 feet. For reference, pilots of small airplanes breathe supplemental oxygen starting at 12,500 feet.
Western hunts start and proceed as armed hikes. If an appropriate opportunity can’t be made to happen, they end that way as well. The first goal of any such hunt is to locate a desired critter, maneuver into a well-built firing solution, then connect on the shot. The ultimate goal always is to come out of the wilderness with every bite and scrap of edible meat, plus whatever trophy parts are desired, and with all the hunting party whole and sound.
The tag Charlie drew allowed him to take either a male or female, essentially freeing him to shoot any goat. The goal of mountain goat hunting, though, is to take a mature male, or billy. Such goats are loners and have to be found like gold nuggets. Like gold, they are where you find them, their snow white fleece flowing in the breeze.
Charlie’s first day began with a hike from the trailhead on a brutal march, arriving at Red Buffalo Pass a little bit before dark. In the daylight left to them, they spotted a female and a youngster occupying a basin where they’d hoped to find a billy. Beyond their non-shooter status, their presence meant the mature billy would not be likely to be there.
After camping at Red Buffalo Pass overnight, first light found them glassing for goats. They found nothing in the basin where they stood, but they could see goats in the distance several miles away, so they set out on another demanding hike many more miles and hours in duration.
Along the way, they encountered five goats at 500 yards, a group containing two females, two juveniles and one immature billy, which the guides successfully prevailed upon Charlie not to shoot. Instead, they continued their march. This brought them to Snow Lake, a key landmark in Unit G6. Goats are known to use it, but none was in evidence when Charlie and his team arrived.
Immediately they began glassing. After an hour, guide Tyler Baisi spotted a mature billy two to three miles away, across the basin they were already in. Baisi is 26. A New Yorker and a graduate of Cornell University, he has been guiding sheep hunters for five years.
Tally ho
By then, the remaining daylight was not going to be sufficient to allow for a stalk that day, so they continued to watch the goat as night fell, with plans to reconfirm his position and plot a closing move the next morning. They went to bed in tents that looked out upon the five-goat group they had earlier opted to pass, which naturally caused Charlie much trepidation, but which was necessary for the hunt to be the experience it was to become. On any adventure hunt conducted along the outer limits of possibility, there comes a moment in which everything must be committed for anything to be gained. Charlie and his team were all in now.
For hunting in the mountains, critters are ideally spotted across an open distance, but approaching them tends to happen with the creature not in sight. A stalk has to be planned and plotted. Once underway, the hunter is on the same slope as the critter, which is apt to be hidden by the folds of the land until the hunter closes in. A hunter frequently has to be close enough to spook the critter he’s after to be able to see it in a satisfying view.
The team reconfirmed the goat’s position at a quarter past 6 the next morning, then got ready to go. They unburdened themselves of all the gear they wouldn’t need on the stalk, laying tents and sleeping bags, food and utensils aside before starting up.
They set out on the climb immediately with lightened packs and all the stealth three men on the move through high, open country could contrive, but still they had much ground to cover. Fall weather is always changeable in the Rockies, and they’d left their insulated gear behind. They had a long way to go to get to a spot they had known to be good when they’d set out for it, but there was no way for them to know what the goat might be doing now out of sight. They had last had eyes on the goat around 6:15. The stalking climb was expected to take three hours.
Once they’d gotten to the spot they’d thought they’d be able to use to see the goat, it was after 9 a.m. They slowed and approached cautiously. They put hands on the landmark they’d chosen, peeked around carefully, and saw nothing, at all.
Closing time
At least, not at first. After a few minutes’ hasty reflection, some hurried glassing and the tamping down of cold panic, at 9:15 a.m., guide Cade Cole, 30, spotted the billy at 600 yards. The goat had been continuously out of sight for three hours. Cole is originally from Texas and has been guiding for big game in the Mountain West for more than a decade. He now resides in the foothills of the Wind River Range of Wyoming with his wife and child.
With their shooter located, the team regained their composure, pulled back, then flanked uphill and closer, choosing an overlooking spot 275 yards from the goat. They went ever more silently with each step. They were plenty close enough to spook him. If he detected their presence now, he would change mountains.
They drew level with the shooting spot, putting it between them and the goat. Charlie approached the small bench of land. He chambered a round and slid into a firing position. He laid his rifle atop a rocky outcropping and rested it on a pack. He found the goat in the scope, slipped the safety off and let the crosshairs settle into position. Nothing stood before him now but thin air and open opportunity.
The team was prepared to hunt until the end of the season if necessary but, by Sept. 28, they had essentially covered the entire drainage basin and were on the only mature billy it held. If they missed, or if they busted the stalk and lost the goat, their plan was to hike out 8 miles and then back up a new drainage another 8 miles, a 16-mile trudge to get into fresh country, all with four days remaining in the season and at least two obligated to distance hiking. Quite a lot was riding on a slow, smooth, even pull of the trigger now.
Rifle trigger-pulling is its own sort of now, when all linear time stops and reality spreads sideways. The wind freezes and dust motes hang in the sun. Resting the pad of a finger on the trigger, a hunter hears nothing but his own heart, feels nothing but internal compression and that smallest, slightest pressure, extends his presence through the X and down the tube and tightens like a B string winding around its peg, so, so slowly, gently, gradually, imperceptibly … until the whole world explodes and everything roars back in.
Charlie made clean work of his shot with the .300 Winchester Short Mag, hitting home with the first round, then anchoring for good with a quick second. The rest of the day, following photos taken and handshakes shared after belief had time to clamber up the mountain and flood their souls, was spent dressing the goat, packing him for travel, and striding their way back to the head of the trail. Here, at least, they were working with a bonus, one they’d built for themselves: it was pretty much all down hill from there.
“Colorado is a special place,” Charlie said. “It kind of draws you in. It’s given me memories I will cherish the rest of my life.”
Charlie had sent two rounds at 9:30 a.m. The team got back to the trailhead after 6 p.m. This is a two- or three-day hike for normal human beings, even unburdened, but being in Sheep Shape is a different level of fitness, both physical and psychological. In all, they walked more than 35 miles in the course of the chase, every step etching memories deeper into the folds of the mind. The etchings form a path only the hunter may see, but that anyone he chooses may feel, and follow.
Kevin Tate is a freelance writer. Email [email protected].
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