DARRINGTON – This man is lean, with long legs and a passion that keeps him moving, even on the most treacherous of trails.
He packs light, carrying energy and fruit bars, only one water bottle and a canister of iodine pills, and only the most essential pieces of wildlife tracking gear.
He’s quiet, but he’ll answer your questions as he moves – if you can keep up.
He is Adam Wells, a modern-day mountain man who chases modernly outfitted mountain goats.
Wells, a 26-year-old graduate student at Western Washington University, is among a group of researchers studying the elusive native goats, whose populations are on the decline around Darrington and all of the Cascades.
To help Wells track the creatures, they are shot with tranquilizer guns and outfitted with Global Positioning System collars. About 40 goats in different herds up and down the Cascades now have the GPS collars. Some of the tracking can be done with fixed-wing airplanes or helicopters, but some of it must be done by climbing up to where the goats are.
It’s up to Wells and other researchers to track the animals by foot and capture the data from their collars.
On a recent workday, Wells, dressed in a T-shirt and water-repellent shorts, decided to try and locate a goat that he believed was hanging out around Round Lake off the Lost Creek Ridge Trail near Glacier Peak. For the uninitiated, that’s way back in the mountains east of Darrington.
At the trailhead, Wells shed his flip-flops, slipped on his trail runners and, at about 10:30 a.m., dashed off down the trail. Chris Danilson, a wildlife biologist from the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe, and a Herald reporter and photographer followed Wells.
Moments later, Wells was zigzagging up some serious switchbacks. Stopping only to let his hiking guests catch their breath, he gained 3,600 feet in elevation over five miles, going from 1,900 feet to 5,500 feet in about two hours.
“The trick is to have energy once you’re up in goat country, to be able to chase after them and then get back off the mountain,” Danilson said.
At Bingley Gap, 4,500 feet, Wells took his first stab at locating the goat. He snapped his UHF antenna into a receiver and waited for a signal that would tell him the goat was near.
The signal didn’t come. A visual scan of the surrounding cliffs was also unsuccessful.
So, with mosquitoes biting and sweat flowing, it was on to the next spot, Round Lake at 5,100 feet, where another unsuccessful attempt was made to find the goat.
Finally, after six hours and nearly eight miles of hiking, the group bushwhacked its way to the summit of Lost Creek Ridge, 6,343 feet above sea level. To get to the top, Wells had to pull himself up a ridge so steep he had to crawl to get to the top.
Once there, he had a 360- degree view of the tops of Glacier, Sloan and Pugh peaks. But that didn’t help him spot his goat.
Despite the beautiful scenery, even Wells was a little worn down at that point.
“It’s disappointing,” he said. “We put in a lot of hard work. Now we’re just going to have to come back.”
Knowing that the goats would most likely come around the corner as soon as he left, Wells lingered at the mountaintop for about two hours, lounging on the green grass while occasionally using his binoculars to make sweeping searches of the surrounding cliffs.
The magnificent view from the ridge included mountain lakes, snowcapped peaks and massive fields of rocks in the distance.
A black bear munched huckleberries on a flower-covered meadow more than a mile away. Water gurgled from beneath a melting patch of snow. The air was spiced with the pungent smell of sage.
At 6:10 p.m., Wells finally gave up. With darkness on their heels, he and Danilson ran back down the trail, getting back to the trailhead at about 8:30 p.m. It took the worn-out, tag-along visitors a bit longer to make it to the bottom.
For Wells, it was just another day at the office.
Reporter Lukas Velush: 425-339-3449 or lvelush@ heraldnet.com.
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