Roughwater
WKR
This thread is meant for anyone that has experienced Altitude sickness or any issues related to hunting at altitude. So if you have had Altitude issues please explain in detail what happened and what elevations were you feeling it at? Thanks.
Recently a new Eastern Elk hunter had asked for opinions on whether he should just go pack in deep (6 miles) or hunt on his way in though it seems he already had made up his mind to go deep right away. I live in Eastern NC now but learned real quick that a mile in the Rocky mountains is far harder than your average mile and then there is also the elevation factor. I feel like that is something new eastern hunters don't completely understand till they experience it for themselves and got me thinking to post this thread.
I'll start it off with a hunting trip I took to Colorado in Oct of 2012 First Rifle season. I was much younger then at only 62 years old. I had hunted elk back in the 90's a couple times in Colorado during archery season so this was to be my 3rd Elk hunt. I trained quite a bit with walking, biking and jogging mostly along with dieting and lost over 20 lbs prior to the hunt. I had been a runner and biker and had even run some marathons and many road races up into my 40's and ran up into my 50's so I knew a little bit about training.
While working I had met a local hunter out of Durham NC that had previously lived in Colorado just a couple years earlier and had done some Elk hunting there. So we got to talking and decided to go Elk hunting. He was at least 20 years younger than me I imagine. We hunted deer a couple times prior to going to Colorado and he was one that likes to hike way in to hunt and I liked hiking myself so we got along well.
So the unit we planned to hunt had a parking area about about 8600 Ft elevation and the place we planned to hike into was about 7 miles and at around 10.5 k Ft elevation were we were to set up camp and planning to hunt up to 12K ft or so. I arrived about 4 days before the opener. I initially camped out of my truck in the parking area. There was a small lake nearby and one of the first things I did was to walk down to the lake and back which was maybe a mile round trip. I suddenly found myself having a nose bleed just from doing that! It wasn't a bad one but did concern me as I never get nose bleeds. I soon hiked some on a nearby trail to gradually get used to the altitude. Before the opener I had carried part of our camp out to the wilderness campsite which literally kicked my a$$. I felt half sick from that hike. I set up the tent and hiked back which was much easier as it was all downhill coming back. But I half dreaded caring the rest of my gear back out there again. My hunt partner had still not arrived opening morning so I hiked out the main trail and hunted some halfway between the truck and the camp and finally my hunt partner arrived around noon so I got back to the truck and met him and we got our gear together and started hiking to the camp I had half set up so we could get there before dark. My expectation was that my partner being younger, thinner, pretty fit and having lived at elevation some 2 or so years earlier would have no problem with the elevation but it didn't work out that way. He struggled as I did and he got sick about 9 tenths of the way there and puked his guts out. After that day, however he did seem to get around a little better than I could. Unfortunately the mountain he thought would have elk grazing on at about 11.5 -12K feet which we hiked to early the next morning showed no Elk sign at all. Not even old sign. So we went back to our camp and packed up and brought all our gear in one trip back to the truck. I think I was probably carrying at least 70lbs and though downhill was still a struggle with my old cheap backpack. About 2/3's of the way back to the truck my partner decided it would be quicker to jump off the trail to get back to the truck. I didn't agree so I stayed the trail while he went his way.
I got back to the truck and no partner? I waited there about a half hour and decided I best go look for him. So back up the trail I went. I asked some hikers along the way if they had seen him but they had not. I finally got back to near where he had jumped off at and saw him limping down the trail. Apparently it was very steep where he jumped off at and with the heavy awkward backpack he fell and rolled a ways and got beat up some but fortunately not seriously injured.
The Elevation alone with the forever uphill took it's toll not to mention I was having trouble sleeping. Later that week we were trying to sneak along in the pre-morning darkness at 11 something thousand feet elevation. I was having trouble standing on one foot at a time and quietly moving along. I tried the Red beam on my headlight but it wouldn't give me enough light to see the small twigs etc and the white lite was like a spotlight so my partner didn't want me using it so I felt like was caught between a rock and hard place.
To summarize, I feel the elevation led to mild sickness, near exhaustion, possibly to several nose bleeds I had that week, difficulty sleeping and caused me at times to have difficulty concentrating and remembering. As to remembering, when we packed up to leave I sat my scoped rifle up against the bumper. We put everything in the back I thought. When I backed up I heard something that didn't sound right so I got out and checked and I had run over my rifle. I had run right over the Leopold scope. It bent the scope mount a little but the scope is still usable and just has a scratch on it fortunately for me and the Winchester rifle still shoots fine. But what a crazy hunt. LOL.
I've since gone on 3 more elk hunts but none in Colorado. In my older age I feel like I do better if I mostly hunt at elevations under 10K ft.
So I am hunting in Montana this year so I'm trading a little elevation for Grizzly bears.
Recently a new Eastern Elk hunter had asked for opinions on whether he should just go pack in deep (6 miles) or hunt on his way in though it seems he already had made up his mind to go deep right away. I live in Eastern NC now but learned real quick that a mile in the Rocky mountains is far harder than your average mile and then there is also the elevation factor. I feel like that is something new eastern hunters don't completely understand till they experience it for themselves and got me thinking to post this thread.
I'll start it off with a hunting trip I took to Colorado in Oct of 2012 First Rifle season. I was much younger then at only 62 years old. I had hunted elk back in the 90's a couple times in Colorado during archery season so this was to be my 3rd Elk hunt. I trained quite a bit with walking, biking and jogging mostly along with dieting and lost over 20 lbs prior to the hunt. I had been a runner and biker and had even run some marathons and many road races up into my 40's and ran up into my 50's so I knew a little bit about training.
While working I had met a local hunter out of Durham NC that had previously lived in Colorado just a couple years earlier and had done some Elk hunting there. So we got to talking and decided to go Elk hunting. He was at least 20 years younger than me I imagine. We hunted deer a couple times prior to going to Colorado and he was one that likes to hike way in to hunt and I liked hiking myself so we got along well.
So the unit we planned to hunt had a parking area about about 8600 Ft elevation and the place we planned to hike into was about 7 miles and at around 10.5 k Ft elevation were we were to set up camp and planning to hunt up to 12K ft or so. I arrived about 4 days before the opener. I initially camped out of my truck in the parking area. There was a small lake nearby and one of the first things I did was to walk down to the lake and back which was maybe a mile round trip. I suddenly found myself having a nose bleed just from doing that! It wasn't a bad one but did concern me as I never get nose bleeds. I soon hiked some on a nearby trail to gradually get used to the altitude. Before the opener I had carried part of our camp out to the wilderness campsite which literally kicked my a$$. I felt half sick from that hike. I set up the tent and hiked back which was much easier as it was all downhill coming back. But I half dreaded caring the rest of my gear back out there again. My hunt partner had still not arrived opening morning so I hiked out the main trail and hunted some halfway between the truck and the camp and finally my hunt partner arrived around noon so I got back to the truck and met him and we got our gear together and started hiking to the camp I had half set up so we could get there before dark. My expectation was that my partner being younger, thinner, pretty fit and having lived at elevation some 2 or so years earlier would have no problem with the elevation but it didn't work out that way. He struggled as I did and he got sick about 9 tenths of the way there and puked his guts out. After that day, however he did seem to get around a little better than I could. Unfortunately the mountain he thought would have elk grazing on at about 11.5 -12K feet which we hiked to early the next morning showed no Elk sign at all. Not even old sign. So we went back to our camp and packed up and brought all our gear in one trip back to the truck. I think I was probably carrying at least 70lbs and though downhill was still a struggle with my old cheap backpack. About 2/3's of the way back to the truck my partner decided it would be quicker to jump off the trail to get back to the truck. I didn't agree so I stayed the trail while he went his way.
I got back to the truck and no partner? I waited there about a half hour and decided I best go look for him. So back up the trail I went. I asked some hikers along the way if they had seen him but they had not. I finally got back to near where he had jumped off at and saw him limping down the trail. Apparently it was very steep where he jumped off at and with the heavy awkward backpack he fell and rolled a ways and got beat up some but fortunately not seriously injured.
The Elevation alone with the forever uphill took it's toll not to mention I was having trouble sleeping. Later that week we were trying to sneak along in the pre-morning darkness at 11 something thousand feet elevation. I was having trouble standing on one foot at a time and quietly moving along. I tried the Red beam on my headlight but it wouldn't give me enough light to see the small twigs etc and the white lite was like a spotlight so my partner didn't want me using it so I felt like was caught between a rock and hard place.
To summarize, I feel the elevation led to mild sickness, near exhaustion, possibly to several nose bleeds I had that week, difficulty sleeping and caused me at times to have difficulty concentrating and remembering. As to remembering, when we packed up to leave I sat my scoped rifle up against the bumper. We put everything in the back I thought. When I backed up I heard something that didn't sound right so I got out and checked and I had run over my rifle. I had run right over the Leopold scope. It bent the scope mount a little but the scope is still usable and just has a scratch on it fortunately for me and the Winchester rifle still shoots fine. But what a crazy hunt. LOL.
I've since gone on 3 more elk hunts but none in Colorado. In my older age I feel like I do better if I mostly hunt at elevations under 10K ft.
So I am hunting in Montana this year so I'm trading a little elevation for Grizzly bears.
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