We did, and there, 350 yards upslope, a nanny and a kid stared down. It was heartening but not a mandate to climb. They would vanish in the rock and leave us scrambling futilely to catch up. And this was the mating season, so we should have seen a billy with them; we didn't.

Still, one could be nearby, so we pushed on just a little farther. Have you dreamed of a prize just out of reach, of inching forward on rubber legs or wading through deep snow or water or deadfalls to no avail, of struggling toward the top while the top comes no closer? I felt that way as we skirted dense alders and powered on by sheer force of will. We had to go fast, both to make our timetable and to glimpse another goat, which have an uncanny knack of wandering off while you navigate through the rocks, ledges and cliffs to get to them.

We closed to within 100 yards of the bluff where the goats had been, but the mountain was empty. Behind, across the Chilkat to the southwest, a purple wall of cloud had obscured the sun. We'd have to leave soon.

"Let's go there," I said in gasps, and pointed to the bluff. Larry nodded and surged ahead. Like the last six miles of a marathon, this last ascent demanded all the strength I could muster. We struggled up a chute, crampons clanging on rock. Goats hear well, I knew. A final effort. We'd have no muscle, no time for another assault.

In a small saddle atop the chute, Larry threw himself flat. "Billy!" I saw it right away, less than 200 yard distant and bedded, looking our way. But I had no rifle support, and my chest was heaving, so I charged ahead to an outcrop and flopped into the snow. My reticle steadied just as the billy got up, but then, incredibly, a fog bank came from nowhere to hide his escape.

No! my mind screamed, but the tendrils of fog drifted apart as the goat lunged up onto a ledge that would carry him around the mountain. I squeezed the trigger on the .325 WSM, crosswire on the goat's last rib.

"You missed!" cried Larry. "Shoot again!"

I fired, and the hit from the 200-grain Nosler Accubond was audible. The billy collapsed on the ledge. I fired again, certain this goat was finished, but as I reloaded, Larry told me to shoot again, that he'd seen a bit of movement. I shot twice more. The far shoulder would look like one big exit wound, but Larry has had to rappel to goats and bring out billys with broken skulls and horns. His mantra: Taxidermists can sew bullet holes.

Then the adventure truly began. It was four o'clock and getting dark fast. Larry's light found our tracks and kept us on the mountain--until the batteries went dead. Fortunately, that was after the stream crossing, after a tree had given way beneath my hand and had sent me headlong downslope until a forked limb caught one crampon. Nearly upside down with all my weight and the goat-heavy pack pulling hard, I had to rely on Larry to unlash the crampon to free me.

We raced through the darkness to try to beat the storm to the trailhead. We were four hours into the night and at one point lost the trail in the alders, but we stumbled on rather than risk an uncomfortable bivouac in sweat-soaked clothes.

When we awoke in beds under a roof the next morning, we knew we'd made the right decision. Valley winds were toppling trees, and the Haines airport was closed. Just an hour away in Juneau, the storm grounded commercial jets.

It's a rare trip that includes all elements you might name as essential to a classic wilderness hunt: physical challenge, urgency, danger. As for our decision to climb, a seaman might have observed that a ship in port is safe, but ships aren't built to stay in port. As Larry Benda says, "Hunting is easy in level places, but only climbers get goats."