Evaluating pressure Preseason/How deep to hike in

[cnelk]

Get to know a topo map and look for benches and saddles.

 

[Indian Summer]

Here’s a bit of advice for what it’s worth. It’s not always about distance. You ask how deep should I hike as in how many miles? In other words, you want to put a barrier between you and other hunters. That barrier being distance. There are a lot of places that are only a mile or two from the road but much higher in elevation. If you gain 2000 feet of elevation it is probably as good or better than hiking 6 miles or so. Anybody can bust out 6 miles on a creek bottom or ridge top trail with gradual elevation gains. Most people would rather do that than bushwhack up a near vertical climb for a couple thousand feet. Especially in the dark first thing in the morning.

Then there is this…. In low country, the hills are more rolling. Elk and hunters can pretty much travel anywhere they want. You can guess where you might find elk by looking at topo maps but it’s just a crapshoot until you get there and find out firsthand.

The higher you get the steeper the hills are. Once you get really high up there will be places where elk and other game are forced to travel. Places where they have to go around a cliff or rock slide, etc. Razorback ridges where it’s just not practical for any living thing to walk. It’s much easier to predict where you can find elk sign in those places. Less hunters too.

Water is more scarce at higher elevations too. Always a good thing. Usually more glassing opportunities from vantage points up there too which is a big plus.

Once you get to that point do what Cnelk just told you in the above post and look at the map for saddles and benches. You’ll find elk doing that if they are there.

Prepare to sweat! On the bright side it’s downhill to the truck. Packing elk downhill is easy right? Don’t forget your trekking poles…..

 

[bcjoe]

Glass, Glass, Glass if no luck finding elk and nothing on the lower grasslands. Look for the nastiest looking drainages and avalanche shoots that are furthest from the trails and are north facing and plan a trip into there and you will run into them, just hope you see them first. if the drainage has a nice creek than that is even better because the wind swirls in those cold drainages all day, good for them not so much for you.

 

[cnelk]

It’s not a secret that I hunt only a mile or so from a vehicle.
Since 2009 (when the Go Deep craze started) we’ve killed a couple dozen elk with a system I’ve created to dissect an area that has lots of pressure.

I decided to do this because Old Man Time is undefeated and I want to hunt elk as long as I can.

It works so good I’ve only shared it with a couple people. They compared it with what they encountered and said it was spot on.

But…. It’s not for sale or anything but could be figured out.
It only took me about 5 years.

 

[hoosierhunter11]

It’s not a secret that I hunt only a mile or so from a vehicle.
Since 2009 (when the Go Deep craze started) we’ve killed a couple dozen elk with a system I’ve created to dissect an area that has lots of pressure.

I decided to do this because Old Man Time is undefeated and I want to hunt elk as long as I can.

It works so good I’ve only shared it with a couple people. They compared it with what they encountered and said it was spot on.

But…. It’s not for sale or anything but could be figured out.
It only took me about 5 years.

Got the chance to chat with Cnelk before my first trip. I didn’t get the secret sauce but this general sentiment really helped me. I ended up shooting my bull a little less than 3 miles from the truck by foot. Probably only 1.5 miles the way the crow flies. It was, however, just shy of 2000 ft of elevation gain. Truck was parked at a popular campground (where we camped a few nights and hunted in the opposite direction of where I shot my bull for several days). We did get to get him out to bike and hike trail to go down that elevation but wow that was a leg smoker!