Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Thanks Montana (solo backpack elk) and 2013 season

I was in a conundrum: on the one hand as I was on top where I wanted to be, on the other there was literally zero cover or anywhere to get out of the wind. It was almost a mile of barren mountaintop in both directions with drop offs on both sides. My only option was to go back down below the saddle. Fortunately, earlier that day before I had started up, I realized that I was probably going to be repeating this back and forth through the big drainage the whole time, and left extra gear down in the bottom so I wouldn't have to go back out. With that I decided that to save time, I would cache most of my gear in a clump of bushes just below the spine of the ridge, knowing that I would move faster in the morning coming back up without a heavy pack. I pulled out my emergency bag, took off my puffy jacket and pants, rolled a water bottle and the Jetboil into them, and stuffed it into the pack.

Even though the snow was knee high to almost waist high in places I cruised down the mountain, relatively speaking in comparison to coming up and made it down to the other gear in about two and a half hours. Mostly because I was able to sit on my butt and slide down long patches at a time. I got to the gear, pulled out the bag and went straight to sleep.

1:30 am came way to early and the temperature had plummeted. I rolled the gear up, ate a snickers, filled the water bottle, and headed up. It did indeed go faster.... by about an hour. Once I reached the first saddle the wind had picked up to over 30 mph, and it was in the single digits. By the time I turned to go up to the ridge from the saddle I could no longer feel my feet at all, and my hands were barely hanging in there. The last 500 or 600 yards tested me. I was having conversations with myself. It seemed so silly that I could see my pack, yet it was taking forever to get to. I tried walking in my footsteps from the day before but the wind had all but covered them, and the snow had that awful crust on top so that every step you think it'll hold, and then as you lift the back foot it collapses and you sink past your knees. It got to the point that I had to take a step and pause. Take a step and pause. On the steeper parts I was having to kick toe holds into the slope for each step. It took three and a half hours to reach the pack, my water had frozen totally solid, and I had lost total feeling in my feet for over two. I needed to get warm and now.

Even though I put on the puff man suit the wind was smoking coming over the backside of the ridge and cutting right through it. I pulled the pack out of the cubbyhole in the bushes and started digging. In about 20 minutes I had built half a snow cave with the front open that I could sit in. I laid my vest on the snow and sat down. Wrapped myself in the bivy around the Jetboil and fired it up. I basically created a tent with the snow packed down on the back and sides blocking the wind and the bivy around the front and the stove as a heater. Took my boots off and laid my feet close to the stove until feeling started coming back. By now the sun had popped up and I took a look around.

Within ten minutes this started rolling in-


I was keenly aware that going solo, especially in this kind of weather means that you are afforded less margin of error, no room for mistakes and that you are your backup plan. There was no cell service whatsoever, I could see for miles (at least until the weather rolled in) with no one in sight. I was at a minimum 5 hours of hustle from the bottom, with another two to the trailhead, had barely any feeling in my feet, and once the weather came in my "BINGO" point had been reached and the decision for me to go back to the nearest spot to get out of the wind, build a small fire and get everything back in control was made for me.

It took a bit over an hour to find a finger jutting out from the ridge with a big downed tree that was partially burned out. Of course the feeling was gone in my extremities again, my gloves had frozen solid, and it was rough trying to gather tender that was dry enough to burn. After two or three tries I finally got it going-


There really is no describing what a fire will do for your mental stae in crappy situations.

What you can't see is that I had to dig down 18 inches or so in the snow to reach bare ground for the fire, I really wasn't out of the wind, and the heat from the fire warmed my boots up enough that as soon as I moved them and they touched snow it would melt and then a sheet a ice formed completely around them in less then a minute.

I sat there for 30 minutes or so deciding what to do. On the top I could see for 3+ miles on the back side and there were no elk. Heading east along the ridge ran into one of the biggest peaks in the entire range. West and south dropped into bare wasteland looking slopes, so really the drainage to the south that I was working in was it. I knew that there wasn't 100+ elk in there, but it was a big valley and I did know that there were some elk. I saw that if I continued down the finger for a half mile or so it met up with another one and made some broken ground with a few cedars/spruces and should offer at least a little protection from the wind. I gathered my stuff, put the fire out, making sure to move all of the very few small coals away from the burned out log, and started out. With some feeling returned to my feet and going downhill it only took about 30 minutes to make it to the trees. From there I had a good vantage point to glass most of the valley, and three "smaller" ridges.

It was very steep, so I dropped the gear and made my way over a couple of hundred yards to a cedar that must have broken in the storm a few days before. Back and forth I went carrying boughs to make a small platform to sit on. I gathered enough that I could build a small flat on so I wouldn't slide, and made a small fire to finish drying out my gloves and boots. Pulled out a snack and had to melt snow in the stove because my water was still frozen.

With that done, and the sun finally warming a bit I started glassing. A couple hours passed and a few deer fed out on a south facing slope below me-




A bit later a mile or so away-



Pretty solid buck-




An hour and a half before dark I see some lighter colored suspicious shapes 2+ miles out. Oddly to me three elk had fed out on a south facing slope in daylight-







to be cont.......