Hercules...Hercules....Hercules!!!!

[Clarktar]

I packed my bull and a buddies bull this year so this is just for a quick reference.
Both were 5x5's. Mine was a 1/2 mile to the truck, half up hill and the rest relatively flat on a ridge top. His bull was a little bigger and it was all downhill about a mile to the truck.

We did mine in two trips (2 guys). With my buddies it was a really bad/steep uphill climb for half so we ended up doing 2 trips to get the bull to an easier spot, then went back for 2 trips to get it to the truck, also 2 guys.

We usually each take a hind quarter and neck meat/trimmings in one round, then go back and take the front quarter, straps, head, etc. on the second round. We try and evenly distribute the loads, but the guy whose carrying the head on the last round usually has to carry more for that round obviously. General rule of thumb is the one who kills it carries the head!

I truly have no idea how much the packs weigh. I can tell you my buddy took his bull to a butcher and the total weight of the meat and bones came in around 230-240 lbs IIRC. We do the gutless method and cut off the legs at the knuckle. Anything further than 1 mile and I would seriously consider boning the meat out.

So, in the case of my buddies bull, we each packed around 60-70 lbs of meat/bone on each trip, not including the round with the head since that was not weighed at the butchers obviously. Also keep in mind we had gear in the packs so easily factor in some added with there, weight of the packs, etc.....so let's just say for estimates we had around 90 pounds on our backs each trip. It was not fun, but easily doable. We started packing at around 10am and we hit camp at 4pm. Total distance between all the trips came out to 3 miles, even though we were only 1 mile from the truck. 2 miles with heavy packs, 1 mile empty going back for staged meat.

That was one of the more difficult packs out in recent memory, not for total miles but just the very steep terrain, although the heaviest portions were downhill thankfully! If I had to do it again, I would estimate that if we were double the distance (2 miles) from the truck I wouldn't have issues, the suck factor would just be added. Now if that pack was mostly uphill with heavy packs, I would cry like a baby! I'd still do it because I'm dumb that way, but I'd be a hurting fool.

I don't know how I would be able to do more than 100 lbs on my back in anything but relatively flat terrain. 80-90 is tough enough as it is.
That's just my observations. I'm no Hercules, but I'm a big guy (6'1 and 210 lbs) that trains year round. I do some training with weighted packs in the summer, but all the gym time and running I do year round can never equal a real pack out. That's just me. Maybe I just need to ditch all of my training regimen and just do steep/heavy packs all year!

Wait till next year's pack out! Better train on the steep and nasty

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[freediver111]

Wait till next year's pack out! Better train on the steep and nasty

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Yeah, I'm saving the worst of the worst for ya! Then again, I've strategically picked a spot where the heavy pack portion is all downhill. I scouted a spot last year where the pack would have been 1 mile UP a super steep hill. I quickly abandoned that area!

 

[Clarktar]

Yeah, I'm saving the worst of the worst for ya! Then again, I've strategically picked a spot where the heavy pack portion is all downhill. I scouted a spot last year where the pack would have been 1 mile UP a super steep hill. I quickly abandoned that area!

Have no fear, Herc is here.

I prefer up to down. But I'm odd, and that's putting it nicely

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[SkinnyPete]

We had this convo at camp this year.. so we weighed the bone in quarters off our elk. My neices cow and my cow were almost identically sized. We left mine whole, so we could get a whole carcass weight. Then we weighed the quarters. We also weighed my other buddy's bull, bull was a 5x5, branch bull, (not a rag horn).
5x5 bull carcass with no hide, head or legs weighed 245lbs
My cow, no hide head or legs weighed 265lbs.
Nieces cow- rear quarters were 45 lbs and fronts were 40lbs, I would guess the boned out carcass meat was 46lbs.
The biggest bull we saw all season was maybe 25% larger than our cows. (They were both very old BIG cows.) So there's the math.
I would guess an average bone in quarter is 50 lbs... so a 100lb pack is 2 quarters...
I think we tend to overestimate our pack weights because they feel "really damn heavy! That must be 100lbs!" When it is more likely 60-70.... maybe.



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[Clarktar]

These must be Rocky mountain elk, the lesser of elk...

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[5MilesBack]

I prefer up to down. But I'm odd, and that's putting it nicely

Down is hard on the knees, especially when you're older.....that bone on bone thing going on. Up is all muscle stuff......that's more tiring, but less hard on the body overall IMO. Up is more of a mental thing.

 

[JP100]

207kg is 450lbs.
I think he wins

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[Ucsdryder]

damn..then i might have been one of "those guys" ( i once caught a fish "this" big)

my first elk. four guys, we took 100% of the meat. liver, heart, tongue, etc. one trip. my pack was crushing. i even started to tear a shoulder strap on the way down. we had to leave one man standing so he could help the other three up on their feet. you could NOT throw a pack over your shoulder. you had to put it on sitting down and squat up. we took turns being the guy that stayed standing.

I packed out a hind quarter, no ankle...why would you leave on the ankle?) and half the trim meat (neck meats, straps, rib meat, tenderloin) in 1 load and it was slightly over 100.

 

[Ucsdryder]

I'm a fan of the turtle method as well. Sometimes I strap myself to the pack laying on my back and roll over. I've had it heavy enough I had to crawl on hands and knees to a tree so I could pull myself up. When you start getting into those weights you take every step carefully because I dang sure don't want to "scorpion" that kind of load lol. Is it September yet?!

Maybe I'm not doing it right but I couldn't roll over with my load this year around 100 lbs. I did the turtle method alright...the one where you put a tutrtle on its back and watch it flail around!!!!! I couldn't get turned over. Had to take it off and put it on a stump.

 

[wasatchcomm]

I think we tend to overestimate our pack weights because they feel "really damn heavy! That must be 100lbs!" When it is more likely 60-70.... maybe.

i completely agree
i am guilty of this
i am 5'11" 180lbs
i packed a bull out on my own a few years ago, the first load was by myself
i loaded up all the backstraps, loin, some neck meat, i had a eberlestock blue widow at the time, i used a alaskan game bag the big quarter bag, it was stuffed pretty good. the blue widow was opened up and it was pretty full with all men gear and the meat, they are a large bag too.
i think it felt that heavy because how i loaded it and the pack, different story with my kifaru pack
i basically took everything except the quarters, they were left bone in and cooling on a creek.
i also had my day gear, which i was around 25lbs of pack weight then added the meat, i could barely stand, this is before i trained with any pack weight at all, tough straight up pack out, felt like it was 150lbs, only a 1 mile to the truck
get it back to a friends cabin and weighed the meat, it was like 60lbs
so i figure my pack was realistically around 80 lbs on that pack out
i was almost disappointed, i thought i was carrying 130-150 honestly
nope

i went back in with two friends and we got the rest boned out and our packs were retarded heavy on the way out the second trip too.
cascade elk are very large body animals

 

[wasatchcomm]

don't feel bad if you are only carrying 50-80lbs a load out
you are a man if you can do that!

 

[Mark]

I've learned what 65 pounds feels like on my back and I don't even like that weight. I load up my pack with meat and take a few steps. Then I adjust accordingly (add or remove meat) and get to around what feels like 65 pounds. Then I put one foot in front of the other and walk cussing the entire time.

I slide in the mud and snow and fall down, trip over rocks and sagebrush and just fall down for no apparent reason at times, still cussing. I stand up, brush myself off and keep putting one foot in front of the other until I reach camp. I drop the pack on the ground, cuss and then swear I'll never do it again. Then go back for more meat and do the same thing, cussing the entire time.

I have a scale at the truck so if I really want to know I'll weigh the pack. We packed out three elk last season. The heaviest pack I carried last year and weighed on a scale was ~67 pounds. I can live with that. A couple of hours after taking the pack off I can walk upright again. Sort of.

 

[Clarktar]

I had 100 lbs on my back, and that was the longest mile. Flat, but nasty uneven ground all churned up from heavy grazing. Ankle breakers everywhere.

I was surprised how heavy 100 lbs felt. Took a couple tries to swing it over other shoulder. It was heavy but manageable.

I regularly hike with 40 plus pounds and generally I carry the bulk of stuff when backpacking with wife ( she could do it, but I'm old school). Generally this is right around 60 lbs. This year I plan on using more weight for training hikes.

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[Idaho CTD]

With the hide off and bone still in you won't see many hind quarters near 100lbs. The heaviest load I've ever weighed was 143lbs. It was my moose cape, head, horns, and some meat. The cape was wet from overnight snow when I packed it out and when I weighed it it was dry. Most likely it was pushing 150lbs. That was 20 years ago and I can't pack that much at my current weight. Last year my hunting partner and I packed out 2 deer in our day packs. I had to carry some of mine in a game bag like a baby too but the weight he got back from the butcher was right at 100lbs with 10% fat added. That would be 90lbs of meat. Mine was probably 15lbs heavier. Both deer had huge bodies. That was as hard of a pack as packing a whole 6 point bull out in 2 trips by myself last year on a pack frame.

I shot 2 bulls this year and both were tough packs for different reasons. The first bull was tough because it was the biggest bodied bull I'd ever shot. The bag of neck meat was as heavy as the bags of backstraps and front shoulder meat. My buddy and I each took a, skin on, bone in hind quarter the first trip. So with gear and pack weight that would be 90-100lbs. It was all down hill but much of it was pretty steep down hill. The second trip my buddy took the three lightest bags of meat (2 front shoulders, 1 backstrap, and 1 neck meat) and I took the heaviest meat bag plus the head and horns. I later weighed the head and horns at 57lbs so once again I was at or around 100lbs. My buddies pack was beyond heavy. I could barely lift it and I had to help him stand up. His pack is several pounds heavier than mine to start with so his load had to be 130+lbs. I had to roll on my hands and knees to get up with my load. My hips were a bit sore for a few days but we still hiked and hunted 4 to 5 miles each day looking for a bull for my buddy.

The second bull was a raghorn 5 point and it was tough because of the terrain. I shot it in the breaks of the Salmon River where 40 to 45 degree slopes are the norm. It was 1000yds down one of those slopes. I packed all of it out except for one front shoulder. It took me 3 trips. The first trip was probably 80-90lbs with my gun and gear. The second was approaching 100 and was brutal because I did it right after the first and I was trying to rush before it got dark (I left my headlight on the top of the hill the first trip). The last trip was a cake walk because it was only a front shoulder.

It seems like most raghorn or smallish bulls yield 175-200lbs of meat and big bulls push 250+lbs. Cows are 100-150lbs. We've shot some yearling cows early in the year that only weighed 160lbs skinned and gutted with the lower legs removed. Most weigh 180-200lbs and yield 120-140lbs of meat. Also each hind quarter is close to 1/3 of the total weight unless it is a really big bull and there is a lot of neck meat.

At 46 and only 170lbs those heavy loads are a bit tougher then they were 10-20 years ago. I don't do any specific training throughout the year but when it comes to hunting season I'm in full on training mode .

 

[Frito]

This is all making me feel better. I know I'll be packing meat this year whether I get an elk or not. If I get something the first trip back will be the toughest with more gear and the head, if I don't saw the antlers. Returning trips will be just water, cliff bars and a pistol...and a full BOMB bag and that will be more than enough.

 

[BroodBuster]

I walk the neighborhood with 88#'s. it's awful but doable. At least until I stop walking. If I'm just standing there for a minute or two the lactic acid starts to build in my legs and they get all wobbly so the only way I can rest with that much weight on is by resting the pack on my tailgate or downfall or something similar. In the field I've only packed out elk quarters which is not 88#'s over easy terrain. So I'd say my in field limit is about 60#'s.

 

[5MilesBack]

A couple years ago I weighed my pack fully loaded for 5 days with water as well and it was 54lbs. Compared to a meat load, I don't even notice that 54lbs. 54lbs is like carrying only one 50lb sack of feed around and on a pack frame nonetheless.

 

[Frito]

I walk the neighborhood with 88#'s. it's awful but doable. At least until I stop walking. If I'm just standing there for a minute or two the lactic acid starts to build in my legs and they get all wobbly so the only way I can rest with that much weight on is by resting the pack on my tailgate or downfall or something similar. In the field I've only packed out elk quarters which is not 88#'s over easy terrain. So I'd say my in field limit is about 60#'s.

I think training with a weighted pack is good stuff. That's how we did it in the Marines and we weren't carrying the weight on our hips either. We just got used to it. I would do that now, I just don't like putting the wear on my nice packs filling them with weight. Maybe it doesn't wear on them the way I'm thinking but I'm just a little OCD about stuff like that. Maybe I need to buy a cheap external frame hauler and use that. Problem is, I'll start to like it and justify not wearing it out training. I can't help it.

 

[BroodBuster]

5MB,
Exactly. I think of it just like using a doughnut in the on deck circle. That bat sure feels light in the batters box.

Frito,
I had that same concern but someone here mentioned that I may as well bust my pack in the neighborhood during the off season than in the back country during the middle of the season. That makes sense to me. After a 100+ walks around the neighborhood I'm extremely confident that my T1 will survive a back country mule deer pack out. I consider elk hunting a team sport for this very reason

 

[Frito]

5MB,
Exactly. I think of it just like using a doughnut in the on deck circle. That bat sure feels light in the batters box.

Frito,
I had that same concern but someone here mentioned that I may as well bust my pack in the neighborhood during the off season than in the back country during the middle of the season. That makes sense to me. After a 100+ walks around the neighborhood I'm extremely confident that my T1 will survive a back country mule deer pack out. I consider elk hunting a team sport for this very reason

That makes sense. Definitely a good way to look at it. I do a lot of recreational hiking, a lot of it to guage and improve my fitness level so I guess that's not too much different. I just lie to myself by packing heavy "necessities".