Most of my hunting rifles weigh between 9.25 and 10.5 pounds. I have hunted mountains all my life. I am only 5' 6" tall (short) but solid and quite muscular with very little fat. 187 pounds. But living at near 1 mile high in the valley and then going up from there for almost every hunt I go on for mule deer, elk carrying 10 pound rifles is not anything new. I have been doing it for over 1/2 a century. Most of my mountain hunts are at 7000 to about 8800 feet. Some a bit higher, but once you get much over 9500 there is usually not a lot of game to hunt. Game doesn't live very far from food or water and at 9500+ food and water get scarce.
The other side of the coin is interesting however.
I do own a few rifles that come in between 6 pounds, 14 oz and 8.2 pounds and when I do take them out they are a delight to carry and hunt with. So some feel a "need" for a very light rifle and it's not really a need at all. It's simply a want and there is nothing at all wrong with that.
In the last 15 years or so I have had more fun from hunting with iron sighted rifles then I do with scoped rifles and I have killed almost all my game in the last 15 years over irons. I average around 7 kills each year. Some years more, and a few years I killed as few as 5. But I think 7 per year is probably an accurate average. Over the last 15 years that's around 115 head of game. Of those I think about 20 were killed with scoped rifles. All the rest were killed with rifles and iron sights ----- except for about another 20, which were killed with handguns with issue iron sights.
The reason most of my light guns are light is simply a lack of a scope and mounts. The only rifle I own that I made specifically to be light is my 25-06.
As I have aged I cannot shoot very far with iron sights with total confidence, so I simply don't shoot much past 200 yards as a rule with peeps sights and never past about 125-135 with open sights. Such a "limitation" has not helped the game animals very much however. I just shot my buck antelope with a Savage M99 in 300 2 weeks ago from prone over my pack at about 215 yards. Peep sight.
My lightest 2 scoped rifles are a Mauser in 25-06 and a Mauser scout carbine in 30-06. I have never hunting elk with the 25-06 but with correct bullets I would not refuse to do it. Many of my friend have killed elk with 25-06s and done fine. My Scout carbine is a 30-06 and I have killed elk antelope deer and a huge pile of varmints with that little gun. My 25-06 with scope, loaded and with the sling weighs 7 pounds 2 oz. My Scout weighs 8 pounds even, loaded with it's sling.
My lightest rifle of any center fire I have is my Lee Speed 303 at 6 pounds 14 oz. I have killed antelope and deer with it, but not elk (yet) But I will hopefully kill an elk with it some day. I know I can because the 180 grain bullet is the same speed as a 180 grain 300 Savage, and that I have killed elk with a 300 savage and I have seen it done several other times too.
My Savage M99 weighs 8 pound exactly. I did kill an elk with a 300 Savage, M99, but not this one I have now. In fact, it was the very first elk I ever killed back when I was a kid. The rifle was my dad's, which he got from a gunsmith friend of his in AZ in 1947 just 1-1/2 years after the war. It was the only center-fire rifle in our home from when I was born until I got my first 270 at 12 years old. Back in those days we shot everything that needed to be shot with either the 22 Winchester pump (M62A) or the 300 Savage. So as I grew up I started getting more and more guns, but weight was never even something I thought about.
