Mountain Goats Galore

The catastrophic landslide and eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 resulted in near-extirpation of the local mountain goat population, but sightings were reported again starting in 2000 and by 2020 a population of about 250 goats was thriving again. https://www.mshinstitute.org/about_us/blog-posts/mountain-goats-are-thriving-in-the-mount-st-helens-national-volcanic-monument.html

Since the road to Johnston Ridge Observatory (JRO) was closed by a landslide in May 2023, mountain goats have been using the Boundary Trail at Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument to traverse the area north of Mount St. Helens and the Toutle River. I saw more than a dozen goats on each of two walks to JRO in April 2024.