After our hike this morning I went back through some gear. I figure it's an exercise best done right after a hike on a hot day.
My 'old faithful' hunting knife is heavy enough to be used as a crowbar. Per my scale it weighs 0.48#.
A Mora Companion weighs 0.13#. I like leaving the old knife at home about as much as cowboys liked shooting their horses with broke legs, but I think it's best.
That's a six ounce savings.
I think I'm going to take the dyneema cord suggestion after all. That's a few more ounces.
I'm still going to take a 'real' pillow for each of us to put our heads on but I'm also going to bring an inflatable for a knee pillow and one inflatable for a backup. I tested the cheap little Outdoor Vitals pillows - I learned that there's such a thing as thinking you have snapped the cap shut but it not being shut, and they'll deflate that way, but if you fully seat the cap after inflating, I have a stack of them that have held up for days now. Still fully inflated. I'm pulling extra tent stakes out of the tent bag. Seven should be one more than needed. I removed an extra game bag. If we kill an elk big enough to need it, it'll be in the car when we bring in the first load of meat. Also removing the superfluous extra bags they included for each tent subassembly. I think one bag is plenty. As it is the tent has to go inside my pack anyway because my sleeping bag is larger than the tent, so I'm tying the sleeping bag to the bottom of my pack.
FWIW, my 0 degree sleeping bag weighs 5.5# and I think that's likely the first thing I'll upgrade in the future. It's comfy, no doubt, but I think this is one area where it might be worth it to save a pound or more of weight by buying a lighter fancier bag. I can also see some easy places to save weight on her rifle, but that'll be a project for next year too.
My daughter is learning to shoot off of her pack but she isn't 100% there yet and won't likely be this fall, so instead of hauling a big heavy pack on hunting days, I grabbed a very small lightweight backpack from amazon that will hold 2 one-liter smartwater bottles, the kill bag, our sleeping bag liner (aka emergency blanket for cool mornings glassing), and a day's worth of food. With all the downed timber in the unit we are going to, I am hoping there'll be an improvised field rest literally everywhere - sit behind dead tree, put small bag on tree, rifle on bag, shoot. We'll have trek poles. and she is also learning how to use those as a rest and despite the weight penalty she'll have a 9-13" Harris S bipod. I expect *some* places we hunt/glass to be conducive to the use of a bipod from prone, but not all. She also knows how to use the legs as a front rest against a tree trunk to avoid touching the barrel against the tree. My mentality is that everything around you is a potential rest and she's learning that slowly and depending on how this goes we may be able to skip the Harris on future hunts. Also, if we're together (which we should be 99% of the time) I can help her build a shooting position much faster/better than she's ready to do on her own yet, and me being there means she has 2 sets of trek poles - three for a front rest and one to stabilize the rear of her body, if needed, makes for a fairly decent setup.
I have another question:
I planned to use a chest pack for my binos. They'll fit in my existing chest pack. But I'm afraid that if I stick them inside a zippered pocket I will tend towards stopping for a moment when I *could* glass a spot or two, but not doing it, because I have to unzip the pack to grab them. Glance with my eyes, miss spotting an elk, then walk on past them. Same concept as having a water bottle completely stored - if I can't reach it with one hand I'll start to dehydrate before I stop and fish it out. Yeah, that's dumb on my part. But it's the sort of thing I recognize my own tendency to do. Would I be better off leaving room in the chest pack where I *can* put the binos in them if we need to crawl or whatever else puts me needing them out of the way, but just leave them strapped on my neck otherwise, so it'll be easy to grab them and be glassing as often as possible? I have a very comfortable padded strap and they've never been a problem on multi-mile days.
Also - as I understand CO laws and USFS rules, am I correct that I can carry my daughter's rifle for her? She's hunting; I am not. I will not have a tag. As I understand it I'd still be legal to carry her rifle as it falls under the general heading of target practicing on public lands or other approved purposes for which the carry of a rifle would be allowed. She's a conscientious and safe gun-handler but I would strongly prefer to carry it for her at least most of the time when hiking between spots. I'd rather her be free to use her bino and trek poles and let me bear the burden of the rifle's weight.
I have an ink pen so she can sign her tag, in the kill kit. Today I'm going to dig out her SG license, elk tag, and hunter's safety card, and put them somewhere safe so we will be certain to pack them. I'm thinking they all go in a sandwich baggie stuffed in her chest/bino pouch. My wallet will go in my chest pouch.
We have scheduled one more campout for sure before our trip, and if weather allows (meaning we have nights below 40 degrees, which doesn't always happen here) we'll camp out on the coldest night we can, to determine whether we *need* a spare blanket, etc.
