Lessons learned from a first hunt

[J.flanagan]

Everything that follows is based on the opinions, experience, and observations of a very new and inexperienced backcountry hunter.

November 2022, my brothers and I decided to start planning a OTC elk hunt in Colorado. We had talked about it off and on for the past few years but decided to turn the dream into a reality. We are all semi outdoorsy and grew up car camping but a backcountry camping/hunting trip wasn't something any of us had experience with.

We all live in the Tampa Florida area and range in age from 26 to 33. All of us are fairly healthy and engaging in moderate activitie regularly. None of us are fitness junkies. I don't think any of the 4 of us work out regularly. We just stay activitie in our lives, hobbies, and jobs.

We had lofty goals of working out a lot and getting in top shape but the realities of life made that difficult. I'm working on remodeling a house, my wife and I had a newborn, and I help run a small business, even squeezing an hour or two out of every week wasn't possible. I'd run/ruck for a couple weeks then 2 months would pass without me doing any physical prep. As a side note, it's a bit harder to prep for mountain hiking when you live in the flat lands. I settled on running and then rucking with a bunch of lunges.

I didn't realize how much the gear was going to cost. It's nice to have the best of the best gear but in reality, it's not necessary. I probably went overboard and could have gone with lower quality gear. I'll post a gear list and rough weight at the end. Of course there are ways to cut cost.
-Hunt the early seasons to reduce the cold weather gear you will need.
-Buy used gear and shop the sales for anything new you want.
-Don't feel the need to get all your gear from the big hunting brands.(a Patagonia fleece sweater is probably going to work just as well as a Sitka fleece)
-Dont buy it all at once, spread the cost out over a year or two. Easier to budget for everything that way.


We had no clue what we were doing and had a year to figure it out. We spent a lot of time e-scouting on gohunt and scouring forums for any useful info we could find. We learned a lot but there is no substitute for actually getting out there. Everyone told us to go scout ahead of time and "put boots on the ground" but that just wasn't an option.

While escouting we picked out a flat spot a couple hundred yards off the main hiking trail for our camp and then a series glassing spots 0.5 miles to 6 miles away from camp. Escouting is a valuable tool but it does not give you a perfect picture of what you are getting into. Be ready to pick a different camp spot than you planned and be ready to move your glassing points around.

 

[J.flanagan]

So, that was the planning and now I'll get into the expierence and some of the lessons we learned.

I was a bit worried about altitude sickness since I'm a flat lander. I've spent time hiking In TN and have never had an issue with that altitude but 9000 is a lot higher than 6500. I heard a few people recomend Diamox as a prescription to help combat altitude sickness. Me and one other brother used diamox and the other two brothers did not. The 2 without diamox had flue like aches and felt like crap for 2 or 3 days.

---I highly recomend considering Diamox if you are coming from low altitude---

The place we picked to camp was about 1 mile from the trail head, 700 feet from the trail and about 150 feet above it. On paper that's not a big deal but in reality it sucked. Getting back, after dark, from a long day of hunting and then bushwacking up a steep hill to get to the tent was a major bummer. Not to mention, our water source was a stream by the trail. If you needed water, it was a 10 minute treck down the hill and then 20 minutes back up. It was a beautiful place for a camp but at the end of the week we decided next time we would just stay in the campground at the trail head. The time we gained from getting a 1 mile head start every morning was not worth that sucky climb every evening.

---Dont camp too far off the trail, above your water source, or off your main travel route.

We left Florida on Wednesday evening and made it to CO on Friday morning. We hiked to our camp on Friday and planned to start hunting on opening day(Saturday) That 1 mile hike up a gentle slope to the place where we left the trail and headed off trail for our camping spot was a bit of a reality check. It was way harder than I anticipated. Then the 700 foot up hill hike to the camp spot nearly killed me. I've hike some pretty hard and pretty steep trails but never at this altitude. The first day of hunting was hard. We didn't even make it to our planned glassing point about 1.5 miles in. We stopped around 1 mile and worked that area. The next day was better and then each consecutive day after that my abilities improved. By the end, I could walk the first 2 miles of steep trails without much trouble. The first day I couldn't even make it that far with breaks every 10 minutes. Before our trip, I didn't want to believe that acclimation was necessary. However, the reality is that it took my body 3 to 5 days to begin feeding me enough oxygen to keep moving at a good pace.

---If you are coming from low altitude, you need to either be in the best shape of your life(super star athlete) or understand that you will be underperforming for a few days while your body gets acclimated to thin air.---

On the day of our hike in, we had beautiful weather. Lows around 30 and a high of 50 I think. Opening day we had rain/snow lows around 25 and a high of 40. Day after opening day a low of 10 and a high of 30 with pretty consistent light snow. Each day after that was beautiful and sunny, with a temp that went up about 3 to 4 degrees each day.

The rain/snow mix on opening day worked its way into my Danner Vital boots pretty quickly. I've done some hiking in these boots and some tree stand hunting but never really had them in much moisture. They handle a light stream crossing from time to time pretty well. However, in the slushy mix that covered the ground, they soaked through pretty quickly. Two of my brothers had danner pronghorns and those faired a bit better but still soaked through(they had never been oiled or waxed) My third brother had Kenetreks and his feet stayed pretty dry and warm for the whole trip. Those of us with wet boots had to keep our stove going for a couple extra hours every day to dry everything out. That means less rest and way more wood chopping.

---Buy good boots, oil your boots, and remember it's better to stay dry than to spend hours drying out.---

Opening day also clearly displayed the need for rain gear. A couple of us had good rain gear and we stayed dry and mostly warm through the rain and snow. The other 2 brothers had softshells and those don't really hold up against rain or snow. They knew that going in and planned to just stay out of the rain and snow. What none of us counted on was the amount of water and snow that stayed on the trees and brush long after the storms passed. That moisture spent the next 5 days waiting for us to pass by before dropping on us.

In addition to dealing with rain and snow, rain gear is amazing for any wind. I didn't use my soft shell jacket at all for the whole week. I just used a warm baselayer, a fleece jacket, and my rain coat.

--- Bring rain gear even if you think you won't need it. It's Wind gear also.---

 

[J.flanagan]

A few times, when we were out in the field and wet, we started fires to dry out gear and warm up. While doing this we realized that it was much harder to start fire that we anticipated. Most of the wood was wet but even beyond that, things just didn't want to burn. I'm not 100% sure why, but I'm thinking it was just the thinner air with less oxygen. Even if you found some dry twigs and and enough small/medium kindling, you had to tend it and blow on it for 10 minutes before it began to reliably burn enough to not need constant attention. Additionally, a couple of my brothers had different lighters, one had a butane lighter and one had a rechargeable arch lighter. Neither worked well. Waterproof matches and a BIC lighter are the way to go in cold temps. Also, we all had various types of fire starters but nothing worked as well as Pyro Putty.

--- Fires don't start well, bring a bic lighter, Pyro putty, and some dry kindling if you will want to start a fire ---

For clothes, I wore/packed
Soft shell top and bottom, rain top and bottom, puffy top and bottom, fleece jacket, medium weight merino base top and bottom, heavyweight merino top and bottom, medium weight synthetic base. Liner gloves, mid weight gloves, and puffy mittens. Light weight merino mask and heavy weight merino mask. This ended up being too much. I was worried about being under prepared and that pushed me into being over prepared and overweighted. Next time I would get rid of at least 1 set of thermals, mid weight gloves, the heavyweight mask, and maybe my softshell jacket.

--- Don't overpack clothes. Bring the layers you need and trust them to keep you warm. I couldn't wear 3 sets of thermals at the same time so there wasn't a need to bring 3 sets ---

My brothers had gloves and I had mittens. I think they all had cold hands any time we were out in the field. My hands stayed toasty the entire time. The dexterity of gloves is nice but almost pointless if your hands are numb from being cold. I'm sure gloves are fine in some circumstances but your outer layer hand protection should be mittens if its under 30 degrees.

--- Bring windproof mittens, not gloves ---

A few times, we were up on a ridge for the duration of a day. There was a stream in a nearby drainage if we wanted water but that meant a 45 minute round trip to top off our water bottles. So, we used our jet boils to melt snow. While convenient, it's very time consuming. It probably took 10 minutes to melt each 32oz bottle of water. It also consumed a lot of fuel. I had a collapsible 1 gal water container that was a lifesaver. Carrying an extra 8lbs sucks while hiking but not as much as spending an hour melting snow or a couple hours hiking back and forth to a stream every few hours.

--- Carry extra water with you, bring a collapsible water container, melt snow only as a last resort ---

With Temps in the low teens, water froze relatively quickly. So, any wet gear would freeze solid over night and any water we had would be giant ice cubes every morning. We would wrap our collapsible water jugs in jackets over night and I would put my bottle in my sleeping bag with me. Waking up to a frozen bottle is no fun.

--- keep your bottle in your sleeping bag if night-time temps are below freezing ---

Make sure you have a sleeping pad repair kit. Cold nights get really cold when your pad deflates. Also, don't bring the bear minimum sleep system. One brother had a pad that was r4 and meant for the 30-40 degree temp range. He was cold most nights. I had an r6 pad and a good 0 degree bag. I slept in a light shirt with boxers and was hot most nights.

--- if you aren't expierenced with your sleep system and personal tolerances, bring an over rated sleep system. Also bring a sleeping pad repair kit. ---

After a few days, I began to feel sluggish. I'm pretty sure I just wasn't eating enough. I had freeze dried meals for breakfast and dinner with some snacks for lunch. My food probably totalled 2500-3000 calories. I'm not sure, but I would guess I was spending 3500-5000 calories a day. The reality is, I needed more food. Thankfully, one of my brothers had extra protein bars. Also, when you are moving a lot, freeze dried meals are a pain to prep, bring snack food so you can eat durring a 5 minute hiking break.

--- bring plenty of calories per day, including quickly accessible snacks.---

Throughout the trip, I slowly acquired an intense tickle in my throat that made me cough every few minutes. At first, I attributed it to the scrub grass and dust we were sleeping in. However, after some research and reading, it was more likely asthma like symptoms from breathing cold dry air. I come from a warm and almost tropical climate and I think the cold dry air just irritated my lungs. According to the internet, there are a few things that can help. First is to only breath through your nose. That naturally warms and moistens air before it reaches your lungs. Also, wear a mask to trap moisture and warmth by your nose and mouth while you are breathing. I think the dust and grass might have played a roll also, each night my nose got so stuffy that I couldn't breath through it and I would shift to mouth breathing. I would wake up with the most dry mouth you can imagine. Sleeping with a neck gaiter over my mouth did help.

--- avoid the throat tickle by breathing through your nose and covering your nose/mouth with a neck gaiter. Consider doing this while you sleep also. ---

By the last couple days, we were making it 4 miles deep and seeing some sign. However, we were only half a mile off the main trail which was constantly traversed by outfitters moving clients and supplies around. I think in the future, I would spend as much time getting off the trail as I spent going deep along the trail. That is speculation since I don't have a way of trying it just yet.

--- get off the trails rather than focusing on going as deep as you can along the trail.

All in all, I've never had a more miserable or fun week in my life. It was hard, it was cold, it was unsuccessful from a harvesting perspective but it was also incredibly fun. I can't wait to go again and put what we learned into practice.

God has made a beautiful place for us to live and I love to see and experience it. Standing on a ridge and looking out over thousands of acres, watching mule deer silently walk through a bare forest, and watching the sun rise over a fog shrouded valley really make me very grateful to be alive here and now. I'm thankful to be able to have the time, money, and health to be able to spend a week enjoying the great outdoors.

I'm sure there's more that can be said but I think I'll wrap it up here. If you have questions, please feel free to message me or comment here. If you have tons of experience and think I'm dead wrong, please share your opinions in a constructive way.

Apparently I can't attach files. So, if you are curious about a gear list. Send me a message.

 

[Rich M]

I glazed thru yer writeup. Pics were nice.

You guys had fun. Kudos for that.

 

[SCHUNTER73]

Nice, honest write up. The times I have been out west for a hunt, I have always overestimated my fitness level. That’s coming from coastal South Carolina. Hard to train for hills and altitude when there aren’t any around.

You set a goal and went after it. That’s what matters.

 

[wyosteve]

Great write up and realistic! Glad you got to experience it. Those of us who live in the west sometimes forget how good we have it!

 

[Beendare]

Just imagine all of the things you will learn when you have been at it for awhile….

 

[416safari]

I'm a flatlander like most people from the Midwest. For close to 20 years I elk hunted with my brother who was with the Forest Service in Oregon.

He always wanted to hunt east of Salem up the highway near Detroit which meant steep draws and a lot of side hilling. I always asked why he couldn't find a nice meadow with some sunshine to hunt in.

 

[W200]

Some really good real world advice there.....

 

[wyogoat]

Sounds like you guys learned a lot and the next trip will go a lot smoother.

 

[13jcbullock]

Soaking this in. Planning an Elk hunt 2024. Good info.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[TN93]

Thanks for the write some good information.

 

[Scoot]

Some really good info in here.

The lesson I learned from my first Western hunt: elk hunting is really easy. The lesson I learned from every Western hunt since: elk hunting will get into your soul and kick your ass!

 

[clarito]

Good stuff, thanks for taking the time to write it all out.

 

[trophyhill]

Over time and experience, we learn what works and what doesn't. After my first couple hunts, I learned that quality gear is a must if I wanted to do this every year. I hate buying stuff multiple times cuz the last time it was junk and made it harder than it had to be. Now I just pack up my stuff and go hunt.

Sounds like y'all had a great time!