Come along on a DIY elk hunt with me this year in Colorado. Pictures added

[Gil Verwey]

We found there is no way you can go ultra lite when packing in and staying for 11 days. Just 11 breakfasts, lunches and dinners fill a pack. I made the opposite mistake, which I won't do again. I tried to scale my pack down and left clothes I should have had with me. I paid the price, which you will see later. My pack was probably 70# and I wish it was 80#. 70# kills you anyway so another 10# is just a drop in the bucket.

I bivy hunted and had a helium bag. I just brought the essentials but when going for extended periods of time you will have a harder time cutting down.

Here is my pack.

 

On a serious note, there are things that can happen on these DIY back country hunts that can seriously injure you. If you are prepared and use common sense you will be fine. In my opinion there is nothing that can happen that we can't get out of.

Except one thing! It isn't bears or mountain lions, falling and getting injured, getting sick - IT IS LIGHTNING!!!!! This is a major concern when you are alpine hunting for extended periods of time.

Before I went last year I never gave it a thought. The week we arrived in the town we were jumping off from, a park ranger retired after 30 years in the back country. He spent his first week in retirement back country elk hunting. He was struck and killed one week after retiring. If it can happen to him it can happen to any of us.

At this first camp I got my first taste of it. We had blue skies and it was a beautiful day. We saw big beautiful clouds in the distance. Then we could hear thunder a long way off. Next it rolled in on us.

Here it is right before we got hit.

 

Here it is when it moved in around us. It first split and actually went around our camp to the mountain in back and in front of us.

 

Then it rolled in on top of us. When you are this high up you aren't under the clouds you are in them. You don't want to know what it is like inside a thunderstorm cloud. Neither did I, so I went to sleep.

I told you earlier that my wife and Dr call me an idiot, well so does my hunting partner. He has more brains than I do, so he felt we should split up in case one gets hit the other can save the day. I agreed with him.

He did what you are supposed to do. The picture above is right at our camp. He went low into that valley. He curled up into a ball. He stood on his toes until the storm passed.

I did what all idiots do. I stayed where I was. I went into my bivy which had a aluminum pole that held up the bivy from laying on my face. I figured this made a good lightning rod. I curled up in my sleeping bag and went to sleep!

When the storm passed and blood came back into his legs, he climbed back up to camp. He woke me up and told me how bad the storm was. It sounded very scary! Then it was time to go hunting.        

 

[Blue Tick]

Awesome pics and story. Keep 'em coming.

[rastaman]

Great pictures!  Awesome thread!

[Soonerlongbow]

Nice story and pix!

[Biggamefish]

MOre pics More pics I can't wait

[Gil Verwey]

Well we hunted this spot for three days and decided to go on to our next planned camp. It was 5 miles from where we were currently camped.

We broke camp.

   

Now we are ready to go. We are headed to the furthest, highest mountains in the distance in these pictures. Remember the snow field in this picture to left of the highest peak, you will see why later on.

   
   

Now a very important element to hunting the back country is the hunting partner you choose. My hunting partner is very lucky, so we won't discuss me. Ha! I am pretty lucky too.

My hunting partner and I have been doing these hunts yearly for many years. We know we can both confidently rely on each other. We are both confident that we would jeopardize our own lives to ensure the safety of the other. I am confident in my partners skills, he on the other hand is not as confident in mine! Ha!

We both know - two go in, two come out or none comes out!

If you are going to do any extended hunt with someone, make sure ahead of time you both have the same goals going into it. If you are selfish and it is all about you, go alone or stay home. If the person you are going with is selfish and it is all about him, go alone or leave him home. Either way you will have a miserable time. If on the other hand you are there for the adventure and the hunting and it doesn't matter to you or your partner which one of you gets an elk, then you are in good shape and will have a great hunt. A back country trip like this requires team work.

The most important rule for choosing a hunting partner on a remote back country hunt, is to choose one shorter than you with shorter legs.

I am 6' my hunting partner is 6'4". His crotch ends at his neck. He takes one baby step and I have to take 6 giant steps to keep up. He trudges along and has to wait for me. He catches his breath and busts my chops. He lets me catch a couple of breathes and says, "well are you ready"? That stinks.

 

[awbowman]

Great story so far!  Been there .... done that .... and IT IS SOMETHING EVERY MAN SHOULD DO IN HIS LIFETIME!!!!

Oh, and he's right about the lightning up there.  I have lived through hurricanes and tornadoes, and lightning in the mountains above 10,500 made my you know what pucker!

[randy grider]

Even as dimwitted as I am, I'm bound to learn something from this thread. Great stuff, keep it coming!

[elkken]

Great thread Gil .... very good info. Doing a few shorter back country hunts certainly helps you with the equipment list.

   

[Gil Verwey]

Well we headed off on our 5 mile trek to our next camp.

One of the most valuable tools I use, from whitetail hunting to elk hunting to soon to be moose hunting again is a topo map. I have used topos for so long when I look at the map I see pictures of the area. I do a lot of my scouting by topo. The areas we hunted on this trip spanned three topo maps.

I also use and swear by a compass. If my sense of direction tells me to go one way and the GPS tells me to go in a different direction and my compass tells me a third direction, I go in the direction of the compass. The compass NEVER lies and you have to trust it implicitly.  

I would NEVER head into the woods with just a GPS. Here is why. You absolutely need a compass to ensure your GPS is correctly calibrated.

Last year my hunting partner and I purchased high end Garmin Rino 530HCx GPSes. We did this because my partner thought it was essential to have a weather band and walkie talkie. I knew better, but I went a long after some disagreement.

Every time we try to use walkie talkies while hunting they were as useless as, well you know the saying. These were no exception. By the time you could use them, you had to turn them off because the reverb was annoying due to being so close when they start to work, the echo of the walkie talkie drowned out his voice and I could hear better if we just whispered. It is also hard to coordinate when and how you will use them.

The weather channel worked great in clear weather once in a while. It was useless too.

One thing we found out was that you can't trust your GPS. They have a calibrate feature to help calibrate where you are and direction.

When we reached our second camp, my partners GPS would point southeast in a northwest direction. It was opposite in every direction. My GPS was OK and I confirmed it with my compass. I played with his GPS until I found this calibrate function.

You had to push the calibrate function and turn slowing in a clockwise direction for the GPS to clear out its marbles and fly right. Imagine if you didn't know that, brought in the GPS for navigation and it wasn't calibrated. That could ruin you DAY, especially at NIGHT.  

As we headed to our next camp we followed a trail on the topo. When you are in big woods out west there are trails and then there are trails! When started on this trail, it had been used by horses and was pronounced. As we headed into the country we liked, it changed and you should know what to look for.

Here is the beginning of the trail. A blind squirrel could follow this.  

             

As we got more into the country we liked this is the trail. You have to keep your eyes out for piles of boulder and occasionally sticks like this one. It isn't hard but it is different. As campers and hunters go by they may continue to add rocks to the pile. You may also find brass plates installed in stones on the ground.  

   

[razorsharptokill]

One of the most awesome posts ever. How do you like the treking poles? I bought a pair on sale thinking they would help me with the heavy load PFFFFT!
My pack is only going to be about 40lbs! I'm almost ashamed to use them after seeing your pack! I took some clothing out thinking I wouldn't need it. It may be going back in. I hate to be cold!

[Gil Verwey]

I would leave my bow and arrows home before I left my trekking poles and Tyvek home.

Those poles saved me from serious injury and they carry 33% of the load. You wouldn't believe the difference.

Also when you do have to catch your breath, you can lean forward on them and it takes the entire weight of the pack off your shoulders.

Those poles I used are a $19.99 pair I got at Walmart. I had read where guys said buy expensive ones because these don't hold up. The ones I got were great! They will last this year and many years to come.

Well a little later in the hunt I will show you why I was sorry I did that same thing, in regard to clothing.

[Gil Verwey]

We finally got to camp number two and found where we would hunt the rest of the trip. This is where we are going straight back to this time.

As you can see as you get to 11,200' you are treated like a king. They serve you breakfast in bed. When I first woke up this first morning there were three cow elk moving through 20 yards from camp. That is a nice welcome to elk camp.

 

And you get a room with a beautiful view. This is what I woke up to each morning. Remember earlier I said to remember the snow field to the left of the tall peak. Here is a piece of it. A nice view to wake up to.

 

[Gil Verwey]

Food can be an issue for some of you. It wasn't for me, but I suggest you read Cameron Haynes book to discuss food in more detail.

We stripped our packs down as light as we could, but if you are staying for an extended period of time you need a lot of food. Not in quantity alone, but because you are staying out there for 11 days. That means you need 11 lunches, breakfasts and dinners. I had been dieting for 6 months to loose the weight, but when you are burning up energy like we did you need a lot of calories. We didn't do that, so don't follow what we did.

On this trip I lost 10 more pounds in 11 days after I had already lost 60 lbs in 6 months preparing for the trip. I felt great and it didn't affect me, but we did some other things to help us.

This is what I brought for food. 11 Mountain House dinners (DELICIOUS), about 15 Nature Valley bars for 11 lunches with a few snacks and 11 packets of Quaker Oatmeal for breakfast. I also brought 3 extra Moutain House side dishes like rice peloff, peas and corn. That was in case we took a grouse for a hot meal. I should have know we would just be eating the side dishes.

I brought tea bags and a plastic bag of Nescafe instant coffee. We brought in a few Cremora, lemon and honey packets for the tea and coffee.

To help supplement our intake of food we had EmergenC and Wilderness Athlete re-hydration drink and supplement. I had berry flavor and that is the pink liquid you see in my water bottle on my pack. That stuff worked great and I guess it helped because we were way below the calorie intake we should have been consuming.

My partner and I did great out there and had a lot of energy.

You will have to make sure you bring calcium (Tums) and Excedrin. They say that calcium helps fight off altitude sickness so I would keep some tums with me and take one each morning.

Altitude sickness is another danger. I  have not suffered from it yet. My partner didn't this time, but the last time he did and was sick as DOG the first day. The next day he was fine and stayed that way for the rest of the trip.

Altitude sickness is a real danger and can kill you. We found that starting off slow and getting acclimated helps a lot. There is a saying hunt high and sleep low. When you hunt and ascend they say it is best to descend and sleep lower to prevent it. If you or partner experiences it the only way to take care of it before it gets too bad is to descend to lower altitudes.

[TWP]

Great thread, and I may have missed it. But how did you guys plan on getting the meat back? Did you have a packer lined out? If not, how far were you from the truck?

[Hummer3T]

great thread, pictures and story.

[awbowman]

In terms of altitude sickness, we did not suffer from it even though we camped at 10,500 or better the whole trip even though we live at about 32'.  We were told, NEVER sleep with your head pointed down.  It must have helped.

OH and drink A LOT even though you are not thirsty.  I took altitude pills for the first three days also.

[Gil Verwey]

Trevor earlier when I was talking about different types of hunts I said this.

   

 

Last year both my hunting partner and I came very close to scoring on big bulls. I have no doubt that we will do it this year. We found elk heaven, but if we had to pack out an elk on foot from there we were going to leave elk heaven for someone else and we were going to find someplace else to hunt, where we could arrange to get the elk out. My partner is 59 and I am 58. We packed in and out on foot 10 miles with heavy packs. We hunted between 3 to 6 miles everyday. When we packed out we were truly glad we didn’t shoot an elk near the end of the hunt. If I remember right it took us about 16 hours to pack out. On the way out it was up and down and 10 miles in this area is like 24 miles along the Missouri Breaks. I have packed out elk, moose and mountain goat. Packing out a elk from here would have taken at least 3 or 4 days and doesn't count any time to sleep in between.

We are going back to elk heaven this year and I have locked in a packer to get the elk out on horse back. We also arranged for the packer to pack us and our gear in and out on horse back. This will add many more days of hard hunting on our trip. If I hadn't been able to arrange a packer we would have looked for a new elk heaven. I can't begin to express how monumental the effort would be to pack out on foot, at least for two sea level landlubbers. If you do decide to do it on foot you can consider you are only hunting one elk. Because as soon as someone scores the hunt is over for both of you and 3 or 4 days of very hard work will begin. Once you are done with packing out the last of the elk, you won't have the energy to go back or desire for a second elk. Believe me when I tell you.  

 

[awbowman]

Same situation here Gil.  We found the elk, they were just not killable without loosing at least 1/2 of the meat.  We watched elk feed in the same meadow across the ridge for three mornings.  Even the hunters from Colorado told us "they weren't going there for an elk!"  To get to them it was 1200' down and 900' up and 1 mile as the crow flies across.  It was crazy steep.  One morning we walked 2 1/2 miles to end up 900' down and 1/3 mile from the truck!

The last area we hunted, it would have still been one miserable 15-18 hour day to get the elk out.  I may have left a little happy not to have killed.  lol


Arranging for a packer is a must if I go back.  I'm a 51 year old flat lander.

[TWP]

Oh ok, I was wondering how that was gonna work. My buddy and I shot one two years ago 6 miles back. We both train daily and are in our 20s. We didn't lose any meat, but spent the better part of two days getting elk and gear out. I burned my tag because we were too physically and emotionally drained. We parked at 9,400 and shot the bull at 11,500. Never again, never again.