Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Backountry elk hunt

It's Adam's anniversary, and good hunting partner that he is, was willing to risk her wrath by helping me out. We decided to see if we could get it all done now, and get home that night. We were prepared to be flexible and camp at the trailer near the trailhead, while leaving the spike camp up for follow up pack out, but even though we were willing to take 10 days off, we knew life would be better on the home and work fronts if we could get back early. There was still going to be meat cutting and gear sorting and the like to get done, all of which could be done later when we go back to work. So, we quickly hurried back to camp, got the goat packs on and went back to work on the meat. I really wanted to be on the trail before 3:00pm, thinking we could get down much quicker than we got up. I wanted to at least get to the truck before dark.

We worked like crazy, cutting meat, and weighing packs, then marched back to camp. We ran into a moose that did not want to give way, so that slowed thing up a little bit.


We got to camp and started the break down and weigh ins. We had eaten enough food and with the whole trip being down hill, I decided to give a few of the boys 40ish pound loads and the smaller boys 30ish pound loads. Then with a just a little bit of bulky stuff on our packs, plus the antlers, we could do it. And so we did. I think total gear and meat weight a little under 300. Can't remember exactly now.




The aspens down low had really turned in the few days we were gone and it made for a cool effect packing out.









We got close to beating the dark, failing just by a little bit, loading up and heading for home. Getting back at midnight. The end.. sorta, cuz there was another two days of work to go when we got home.