Here's the way I do mine... takes about 35 minutes from dead animal to meat off the carcass and ready to pack out all by myself with no help...and I don't have the luxury of horses or killing one right next to a road.
Whereever the animal lays- make the first incision along the backbone from neck to tail. Pull the skin back to expose the higher of the two backstraps. Remove the backstrap and place on a log to cool. Reach in just below the shortribs and the iliac crest of the pelvis along the spine and feel the tenderloin. Separate it bluntly from the vertebra and cut it's origin and insertion removing it whole (if done correctly, you never enter the abdominal cavity, no muss, no fuss.
Next, make an incision in the hide along the inner thigh and peel back the hide off the hindquarter. Detach the ball socket and remove the entire hindquarter (leave evidence of sex attached to one hindquarter). Debone the leg and place it in a packframe.
Next, another incision in the hide on the inside of the front leg. Peel the hide back and then detach the front shoulder. Debone and place in packframe.
Take the neck meat if so desired as well.
Next, roll the animal 180 degrees to the other side and repeat the process. Presto, deboned ready to pack elk with no mess.
I've perfected the process on whitetails. In fact, I can process a whitetail in around 10 minutes from whole animal to deboned and into the cooler.
On elk, we can usually carry it out in three packs... one for each hindquarter and a little shoulder meat and the third for both backstraps, both tenderloins, and the rest of the shoulder meat. No extra weight of bones to carry out.
