Epic Pack Outs

Yup sounds like a Sitka pack to me. It's definitely telling that none of the Sitka prostaffers use their packs for hunting in my opinion.
 
Wow! Those are some great, or horrific, stories depending on whether you are hearing it or living it, lol! I have nothing that even compares... Knock on wood.
 
Last archery bull I shot. Only about 3.5-4 miles back but shot him up on a bench about 1500' vertical from the valley floor. Anyway my buddy Ben and I quartered him up and decided this was going to be a one way trip to the trail head. Loaded the packs as heavy as we dared and would walk/ stumble about a 100 yds. Then drop the pack and climb back for the other quarter...pass our packs by a 100 yards drop the hind and head back up for our packs. The next 7 hours was spent leap frogging the elk off the vertical and to the trail head. That truck never looked so good!
 
vcb said:
Last archery bull I shot. Only about 3.5-4 miles back but shot him up on a bench about 1500' vertical from the valley floor. Anyway my buddy Ben and I quartered him up and decided this was going to be a one way trip to the trail head. Loaded the packs as heavy as we dared and would walk/ stumble about a 100 yds. Then drop the pack and climb back for the other quarter...pass our packs by a 100 yards drop the hind and head back up for our packs. The next 7 hours was spent leap frogging the elk off the vertical and to the trail head. That truck never looked so good!
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Screw that lol My hunting partner and I hauled his elk in one single trip 1/2 mile out and 500' down (SUCKED on the quads) and were able to get the entire bull in both our packs. I even had a Blacks Creed Barbarian 2.5 at that time and could only get two front shoulders, neck meat and backstraps in my pack while he took both rear quarters and a bit of scrap meat. I hauled the head/horns (raghorn 3x4) on my shoulders too... Leapfrogging meat that's not on a pack would seriously suck!

Mike
 
Becca said:
This is the very reason we try to carry emergency bivy gear and some food with us every time we are away from camp. Knowing you have the gear to stay warm and dry overnight is often the difference between taking unnecessary risks and making the safe choice. Luke and I were Goat hunting on Kodiak last fall with two hunting partners, and our party ended up with 2 goats down just before nightfall. Camp was 3 miles away through a boulder field and alders. Luke and I opted to say where we were since we had bivy gear and didn't want to pack those kinds of loads in the dark, but our partners did not have sleeping equiptment and opted to struggle back to the tents, getting lost twice and arriving after midnight. The next day, We slept in and fleshed capes while they made a return trip 8 hours later to help us pack the goats back...
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That is so true. Like u said knowing that u have the gear to stay put and rest then hit it in the morning is priceless. I think bad things can happen when u get in the mindset that u HAVE to get back to camp. You don't! Make a fire, try to get a little sleep and start again in the morning.
 
Again, nothing epic here. Just seeing if I could I guess.This is about 2/3 of a cow in a worse for wear 2800.
 

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Helped a friend kill a bull elk. Decided to pack it out in one trip. He wanted to to keep the whole hide. So I carried half the meat and the whole hide. Pack weighed as much as me I'm guessing. Thought I was gonna die. Haha
 
vcb said:
That is so true. Like u said knowing that u have the gear to stay put and rest then hit it in the morning is priceless. I think bad things can happen when u get in the mindset that u HAVE to get back to camp. You don't! Make a fire, try to get a little sleep and start again in the morning.
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What happens when you leave in the morning and expect to get back, and don't. You get to a point where you can't go any further, you have no food, limited water, no shelter or sleeping gear, no way to start a fire, on an open mountain side and all your clothes that you have along are wet from the day's adventure. Did that once, don't want to do it again. Everytime I leave camp, I question whether I have enough goodies along to survive an unexpected overnighter. First one left quite an impression when it got down to the upper 20's or low 30's and everyone was wondering when morning was going to come. Only good part was that there was very little wind or we would have been screwed.
 
First bull I killed was about a mile off the road. We had a 200 yd flat and then it was all downhill( very steep) we figured if we could drag him whole to the edge it would be a piece of cake the rest of the way downhill. Took him about a 100 ft and said this is not working and cut him in half (I was very green and had never quartered anything) Made it to the edge of the hill and ended up cutting quarters off. By the time we made it to the road he was in many pieces. Now with what I know we could have packed him out in half the time it took us to drag him the 100ft.
 
tstowater said:
What happens when you leave in the morning and expect to get back, and don't. You get to a point where you can't go any further, you have no food, limited water, no shelter or sleeping gear, no way to start a fire, on an open mountain side and all your clothes that you have along are wet from the day's adventure. Did that once, don't want to do it again. Everytime I leave camp, I question whether I have enough goodies along to survive an unexpected overnighter. First one left quite an impression when it got down to the upper 20's or low 30's and everyone was wondering when morning was going to come. Only good part was that there was very little wind or we would have been screwed.
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This type of story could be thread in itself. Same thing happened to me and my hunting partner last year. We were in the Canadian Rockies, ended up chasing sheep to far and too long from base camp. When we realized how far we were and started making our way back, we got half way and made the decision to build a fire and stay the night on the side of the mountain at tree line. We didn't wear much that day because the whether was good, underwear, shirt/pants and luckily rain gear. When the sun went down it got cold and windy fast. We had one mountain house between the two of us and water which was ok, but even with the fire we just about froze our nads off. We had minimal sleep, taking turns keeping the fire up and slept so close to the fire we both ended up ruining our rain gear with little holes burnt thru by sparks and ashes.

I will always at a minimum carry my sleeping bag/pad and light weight tarp, (always carried food and water), with extra socks from now on, lesson learned. The funniest part was when I had to go #2, I had my butt hanging over a deadfall, on the edge of the cliff, with the wind howling, I am positive I got wind burn! I could only imagine what I looked like if their was a hunter on he other mountain with a spotting scope!

Looking back best decision we made was staying the night, their were some sketchy sections that would not have been fun in pitch blackness.
 
buddy and I both shot sheep two years ago. I also carried the 5lbs of salt we had airlifted in, how we did that will have it I remain a secret...lets just say it was unique. Anyhow so I had my entire sheep to include the soaking wet cape...hadn't stopped raining almost the entire trip. I'm guessing I was pushing 130# easily. We had to walk 6 miles down a creek bed that had turned into a damn class 4 rapids the entire length with all the runoff. Luckily it was rain melt and not freezing glacial melt so it wasn't to cold. We must have crossed that damn creek 20+ times most of those at least mid thigh deep crossings.....several times I thought I was going to get swept away. Scary as hell and very wobbly with that big of a pack. Our reward for escaping the creek? Another mile of soggy tussock and another river crossing....luckily we had a raft for the last crossing. I never did use that damn salt.
 
Why do we think everyone else's misfortune is funny??? swat8888, your story makes my hair stand on end---not fun at all and damn scary.
 
Misfortune is funny when they live to tell about it and laugh with you. Its not so funny when someone dies on the mountain because they don't carry the proper equipment to make dumb decisions like staying out from camp on an exposed mountain.
 
ohhiitznik said:
Misfortune is funny when they live to tell about it and laugh with you. Its not so funny when someone dies on the mountain because they don't carry the proper equipment to make dumb decisions like staying out from camp on an exposed mountain.
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Maybe this needs to be another thread (didn't look to see if one exists already), but would be curious what everyone else takes along with their "daypack". Everyone wants to travel light, but what is necessary? The hunt I was writing about was a sheep hunt (horseback) and we got way back into the head of a basin chasing sheep. We had 5 guys and the other hunter was in his early 60's and ran out of steam more than anything. I had some reasonably dry clothes and a few protein bars. We were still about 2 hours to the horses and then an ugly ride out. I didn't think it was a real bright idea to try that one so my guide and I stayed also. This trip definitely made me more aware of what I should have along, but I'm never sure I have what I should.
 
tstowater said:
Maybe this needs to be another thread (didn't look to see if one exists already), but would be curious what everyone else takes along with their "daypack". Everyone wants to travel light, but what is necessary? The hunt I was writing about was a sheep hunt (horseback) and we got way back into the head of a basin chasing sheep. We had 5 guys and the other hunter was in his early 60's and ran out of steam more than anything. I had some reasonably dry clothes and a few protein bars. We were still about 2 hours to the horses and then an ugly ride out. I didn't think it was a real bright idea to try that one so my guide and I stayed also. This trip definitely made me more aware of what I should have along, but I'm never sure I have what I should.
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Sounds like it would make a great thread on its own, tst. Go ahead and get it started!
 
I'll see if I can't post up our epic wolf packout story from 2012... similar to others in wading the lochsa river first weekend in Feb with ice floating down the river in nothing but cotton wranglers and boots... on my phone now and its a long story!

Mike
 
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