Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting ELK 2014 Humble Pie

Great read and a good learning experience.

Like smokepole said, 3 or 4 miles is usually enough. Lighten the load, 68 is too much. 40's is way better. I'm usually in the low 30's with 3 days food. Large hunting parties are great for a base camp and day hunting, but not in the back country. Always have several plans, it can be hard in unfamiliar terrain, but you never know what is going to happen. I've had places I thought were all to myself to see a bunch of people o horses move in and vice versa. I am still learning, and learn more every season.

From a distance, a decent strategy is to call the local wildlife officers. Some will be helpful, some won't. If you get a helpful one they can give you a few good areas, tell you where outfitters are and all sorts of good intel. Take that intel with a map and google earth and you increase your chances

The 68 pounds was including 14days of food, which was 20 pounds. We were going in to stay� Another lesson learned.

We did talk with the trail rangers, who assured us we would see lots of elk "back there". They also told us the road was not passable by truck and in six years they had seen only two bears. That was about thirty minutes before we had our encounter.

Funny stuff...

Day 1, ready for trophies, with tons of food...

Day 4, Blisters, hypothermia,..turning into Lord of the Flies and fixing to kill and eat the "fat guy"...



Good, honest story. As a flat-lander myself, I don't imagine I'd fare as well as you guys, and probably end up as bear poop.

I wouldn't call it a total loss, has been one heck of a learning experience, plus you got in some good camping with buds..

I wish I would have tried something as haphazard when I was younger,...way to outta shape and old at this point.

Better luck next time..

Thanks for sharing, Bro.
I admire you and your quest.
It ain't over.
You will be successful...

Sounds like you already learned most of the stuff I commented on, sorry for the "piling on."

When you say "trail rangers" I'm not sure what that means but I think KevinT meant the state wildlife biologists responsible for the area. If you get one that's experienced and has been there a while, he should be able to give you solid information. Don't be soured on the one experience with them, they're just like everyone else, good ones and not-so-good ones.....

The average success rate of Colorado elk hunters for either sex, used to be 1 in every 7 years. I don't know what it is now. Elk hunting is hard. You can luck into an elk once in a while, or hire an outfitter, but that is no guarantee.
The group you hunt with is extremely important. You need to have the same drive and endurance. You need to remain positive and not give up. You will get the elk out if you kill one.
Don't feel humbled, it is just learning to elk hunt.
The last 3 bulls I killed were on the last or second last day of my hunt. Two in Colorado and one in Wyoming. I have backpacked all three out, with help.
I would share anything I have learned (for what it is worth). PM me.

Great read..Thanks for posting.

"Experience" is what you get when you don't get what you want� suck it up buttercup!

Nice write up!

It still sounded better than sitting at home. At least you saw an elk which is better than I did my first time out. I've got more bad backpacking trip stories than most but I still keep going.

Concur!!!!

Smokepole, no need to apologize. I need all the help I can get. I might even listen this time!

The guys we talked to were rangers doing trail maintenance. They referd to themselves as "trail rangers", so that is what I thought the common nomenclature was. It was just amusing that all they told us was wrong. I bet they enjoyed us...

Seeing is believing eh? Fire away with any questions, I've probably made every mistake you can make.

We ran into some guys doing trail maintenance too. Stopped and talked to them, they were summer hires. We were very familiar with the area, and it was apparent that they weren't. Good kids though, and they were busting ass!!

Great story! I'm sure as time passes you'll enjoy telling it and everyone will get a good laugh including you. Those make some of the best memories. It's not always the hits- it's the misses as well.

Sounds like you went on a cool road trip, then a cool backpack trip - saw some awesome country and some cool animals, didn't go to work for a week, learned a lot and will be applying it again next year. Well done.

It won't all apply, but a couple thoughts:

Most of our trips are limited to around 10 days. Food weight is a major reason for that. If you have a base camp that you don't have to carry too far, or if you cache food you can extend that.

That being said, I don't think I've ever got my final pack weight under 60lbs. The tradeoff is weight vs comfort, but now you know exactly what it takes to move that much weight, so you can make an informed decision.

A friend has a semi-canned response when asked about how many people his boat sleeps. "It can be too small for two or plenty of room for 10 - it all depends on the people." Attitude is everything. I've been very lucky to hunt with a few "never say die" folks, and keeping a positive mental attitude makes a huge difference in the outcome of a trip. I can't imagine going on a trip like that with more than 3 people, but with the "right" 3 or more could be done. Everyone has to be willing to pitch in, or it just doesn't work. It also really helps if you are somewhat matched physically, so the fast guys aren't waiting on the slow guys. Fast guys can always take something out of the slow guys pack and add it to theirs too... but that is a lot more difficult if you haven't hunted together before.

A shakeout trip is pretty handy to learn the things you don't need. There are a few things that you don't use that you'll still want to bring (first aid kit hopefully, rain gear, etc). It also just gives you a lot more confidence in what you do bring. We generally have a whole "I am bringing the water filter, are you bringing a GPS?" series of conversations to eliminate duplicate gear.

Great read, thanks for sharing. That was some beautiful country. You are not the first elk hunter to be humbled. I certainly have. The good news is you now have experience to fall back on. You are better off than the many hunters who sit in a base camp at the truck and wander off maybe .5 mi. I think the others have chimed in on most of the things I thought I'd do different. You now know first hand why weight and bulk mean so much to DIY hunters! And the mountains and shear size of areas is a challenge. Until you experience climbing with less oxygen it's hard to really appreciate the difficulty. As for the elk, I would not hunt fields, especially with a bow. Cover ground until you find elk, then slowly work through the darkest, thickest timber you can find. When you can cover significant ground walking on deadfalls you are in good elk country! Last year I stood at the edge of a large field covered in 2 day old snow and took some pictures. There was not a single animal track in the entire field. In the dense woods behind me there were tracks everywhere. 5-10 min later I shot a bull. Unless they have to for food, water or to travel, the elk simply do not go out in the open if there are hunters around. My experience anyway. You mentioned the challenge of getting a bull out if you shot it. Completely deboned, a bull would be roughly 4 of those 68lb packs, not including the hide. That's hard on the back, legs and feet.

This thread is somewhat similar to one run in the American Hunter quite a few years ago. Two eastern hunters who'd never seen anything larger than a whitetail booked an Alaskan drop hunt for moose. The plane dropped them off and the next day they took a hike. One of them shot a biggun 5 miles from camp. They spent their entire week packing it back to camp. In the process, they saw several larger ones within a mile of their camp.

Great experience for you guys. Best way to learn is to get out and do it! I'm confused (nothing new!) though, what state were you in? Montana? Colorado? Wyoming?

They saw grizzlies, so not here.

Montana Wilderness unit.

I expected the valley to be full of rutting elk as far as the eye could see. Crazy and running to every sound we made. And me, with a rifle taking my pick of trophy bulls�

Ok, maybe not. I had more realistic expectations than that.

Funny thing though. The week before we(my family) went to RMNP at Estes and that is just about how the elk were behaving. Herding cows and bugling. It was something to watch. I'm sure it did give me some high expectations.

Someone mentioned a shake out trip. You might think about that next time. Go into the area without a gun and license, and just see what you'll be up against� then decide if killing an elk, or getting the 'whole experience' is more important to you. Often a good guided hunt will cost you less than a short string of DIY fiascos.