Your hardest packout EVER!

[Yellowknife]

You mean besides picking the spot, lining up logistics, packing the heaviest pack up the hill by 10 pounds while weighing 40 pounds less than the next guy on the trip, breaking the trail up the mountain, and letting everyone else shoot first so I could go into sketch land to go get a goat for myself and then bring it down to the flat land to have you help me pack it out

Ouch....

 

[thru-hunter]

I recall it a bit different.
My day three was spent hauling meat down to the ocean then humping back up the mountain arriving just before dark thinking I was done only to find my good buddy had killed a bruiser of a goat at the head of the drainage. Grabbed my pack and went up to help haul meat without a second thought. Wound up crossing multiple rock gardens in the dark under a heavy load with three guys and only two headlamps. Got up the next morning and grabbed my share of 2 goat hides, meat and gear then took off in a mad scramble to get down to catch the plane that would take all of of our meat home along with 1/2 the group. Waved bye to the bird and then discovers that all the good camp food had taken the ride out too.. Ate some goat meat then headed back up the hill to recover the rest of camp.
Next day loaded up spike camp and made my third and final trip down to base camp at the salt narrowly beating bad weather and luckily getting out just before we would have been stuck for day with the aforementioned lack of food.

Did I mention that bloody pack on my back as we made our way down with nothing but an empty 338 for bear protection?

You are definitely the man for planning it while I was in Iraq though. I didn't do to bad considering the previous 9 months was spent at about 200' above sea level in the desert.

My only regret is being stuck packing instead of getting to head out to help with your goat. We should definitely do it all again one of these days! I have just the spot on my wall for a thick furred 1/2 goat mount...

 

[luke moffat]

all correct I have the story all wrong...you are 100% correct, I was a slacker on that trip...those potential future hunting partners be warned

Suprised you want to subject yourself to all that again and all having to do all the work yourself....I'll spare ya the trouble of babysitting me perhaps

 

[Daniel_M]

^^is that Freeman?

 

[thru-hunter]

HAHA....all in good fun, in truth Jon and my two buddies all tagged out the day before me so they packed their goats from spike camp back down to the ocean while I want hunting solo. They came back up to the alpine as I was just getting my goat to the valley floor. Was awfully nice to have them help me pack it the 3/4 of a mile in the dark back to spike camp thats is for sure. But the other stuff is true as well...I wasn't a complete slacker on the trip

That's all true! Only found a couple other guys that I enjoy hunting with as much. I do remember us being buried in the sucker brush and you asking if I had my 10mm on me. I responded "no, since you have your 338". That's when you mentioned that the goat was killed with your last bullet!

The recount of the adventure at base camp with a hide stealing fox was also intriguing when told by certain "injured" hunting partner (who couldn't make the trip back up to spike camp). I really liked the part about him "leaping over the bear fence with my rifle and shooting said fox at 200 yards". Emphasis on "leaping" <grin>

In truth the fall he took was pretty gnarly and I don't really doubt his decision to stay at base camp. It is just hard to pass up an opportunity bust balls!

4 guys, 4 goats in 36 hours from first shot to last is pretty amazing and more than any of us could have imagined going in. Luke is definitely a stud in the mountains and can tractor up the hill with an impressive load.

 

[Buster]

Over 2 mountain ranges with a bad ass ram on my back. The biggest problem was my $40 pack with 110 pounds on my back. I recommend spending more than $0.30 per pound you plan on packing out.

 

[trdhunter]

A buddy and I shot two spike elk side by side in a hellhole one sunday night just before dark. I was 20 and this was first animal I killed when my dad was not there to help. We gutted them that night in the dark and hiked to 4 wheelers then to truck and headed out the canyon to get cell service. We contacted a friend who told us his neighbor has horses and that if we would give him some meat he would be willing to help. On the way to drop my buddy off for the night, the FRONT tie-down straps to his wheeler broke and his wheeler rolled back off the trailer and his REAR straps were still attached which flipped his wheeler upside down and it bounced a few times on the road. No shit there we were the next morning with horses and packs thinkin we were in for easy pack out since we had horses. Wrong! First we learned horses had to go in different way than we did do to steep, shale covered hill. Next we had no idea how to cut up an elk to pack on horses. Guy with horses was not much of hunter so did not have correct pannards for hauling meat and then we found out two of the three horses had never packed meat.

We got the first horse loaded what we thought was good and when we tried to load the next horse, he went ape-sh!t. Learned that day the smell of blood can scare a horse. After long time, horses were loaded and headed out the canyon. The canyon got tighter and steeper and lots of deadfall timber to try to get horses through. Long story short it took about 20 hours from start to finish that day. I decided that a spike was not worth that much pain in the ass and that next time I will have a plan AHEAD of time. Some of you may say I should have known that ahead of time but I was young and I seem to learn a lot of my lessons the hard way.

 

[trdhunter]

This was start of pack-out. Notice my smile at this point.

 

[luke moffat]

Good stuff trdhunter!! Thanks for sharing, sounds like one heck of a pack out indeed!

 

[Falcon]

Pack out

I think my hardest hunt was killing a 5 point rosie on day 8 of a 10 day permit hunt in the jungles on the Olympic forest .

Killed this guy about 4 miles from base camp at 1030 am. My partner and I, Thank God I had a partner, boned him out, and made 2 round trips the first day. We got back to camp at dark that night.
The next morning, and went in for the final meat haul.
Ended up crossing 3 small rivers, and dealing with a decomissioned crappy so called road.

No regrets.

It was a great adventure I will never forget.

 

[Bonedalien]

not my hardest,but my favorite. a buddy sent a call out on the radio ,he had a bull down.we are a tight group and basicly you can keep what you pack out.(you all know whas in the shooters pack).anyway, i was a long way off,and by the time i got there all the meat was loaded on other friends and the shooter was wrestling the rack out. he asked me to carry his mathews..we had a great discusion at the truck about if you pack it out its yours!

 

[Sunspot]

It sure would be lighter skinning those heads and cutting the horns.

 

[Jared Lampton]

In 2007, I got out of class at MSU and headed down the Gallatin to glass for feeding elk right before dark. The plan was to come back the next day and drill one at daylight, but I threw a rifle, pack, and waders in anyway.

Glassed a bull and some cows across the river and decided to go after them. Shot the bull in an avalanche slide right at dark, loaded a quarter on and headed back through the steep, blowdown timber.

I took a different way out because of the load on my back, and found out when I got to the river I couldn't follow along the banks back to my waders (too many cliffs). Made the decision to cross right there, without waders. One of the spookiest times of my life. Wading the Gallatin in the dark, no waders or felt-soled boots, with an elk quarter on my back. Luckily I'd worked as a flyfishing guide for several years and could make a pretty good guess as to how deep the nighttime water was by watching its surface activity and bank structure. I made it across that November water ok with a couple wading sticks, but had to endure shrinkage that no man should be subjected to.

Then I dropped the pack and had to walk a couple miles up the highway to my vehicle. During the packout, a bunch of blood had leaked through the pack and onto my back and shoulders. A yuppie couple stopped to ask if I was in danger or needed help of any kind. I was probably quite a sight: soaking wet from the mid-belly down and covered in blood everywhere else.

Once back to my vehicle, I had to re-cross the river to get my waders (which I had left on the other side of the river at the start of my hunt). At that point, there was no point in putting the waders back on, so I crossed the Gallatin for the third time with no waders.

I was pretty darn cold. Didn't help that I was hunting in Carhartts. Took a long, warm bath that night.

Good one. Wading the Gallatin in the dark is no joke, especially with a quarter. I went to school at msu too. The Gallatin valley is the site of one of my hardest pack outs as well.

 

[Falcon]

It sure would be lighter skinning those heads and cutting the horns.

I agree.

 

[HighHunter1232]

9 miles from the truck....ouch, it was sooo worth it though!

Falcon, great pic with your bull; tired and happy.

 

[mireland62887]

Caribou in Alaska 2012.

It was my worst, and also my most satisfying. I've packed out a few deer, but nothing too difficult or far.

We were dropped off the day before and put a few bulls to bed. There were a few caribou around, but not hundreds. First thing in the morning we found the bulls near where we had seen them the night before. They were a couple miles away. We spend an hour or so closing the distance, but ran out of hiding spots at 800 yards. Our best guess on how to proceed was to crest a small hill, get behind the skyline, and come up over the top again.

On the north slope, going over a small hill like that opens up another 50 miles of new country. Sure enough, we saw another herd about 2 miles down the OTHER side of the hill. There were four good bulls in that one, compared to a couple mediocre bulls in the original herd. We had opening day energy and were off.

Once the dust settled, I had shot one bull and my buddy (Alaska native) shot two. High fives, hand shaking, photos, more high fives.....and then work. According to google earth, we were just shy of 5 miles from camp (straight line) with a hill in between. By the end of the first day, we had all the meat to the top of the hill. We took one load each back to camp. We covered the meat with a tarp, urinated all around it, and left a few pieces of clothing up there to try to ward off grizzlies and wolves.

Day two we woke up to snow on the ground, which hid the hummocks of tundra underneath it. It was brutal. That being said, we were traveling lighter. No rifles, less camera gear, less of everything except water and food.

At the end of it, we spent 9 hours the first day and 8 hours the second day processing and hauling meat.

Tons of work, but terribly rewarding.


The grind...

At the hill, near the end of day 1. Our camp is on the OTHER side of the river off in the distance.

The snow day...

River crossing. Snow was mostly melted on the bottoms.

Almost home...