In the mid '70s I worked and lived at a Forest Service Ranger Station in northern Montana, just south of Eureka, MT. The Forest Service had a Fire Lookout tower on top of the highest mountain behind the Ranger Station.
During grouse season, I often hunted the tops of the ridges around that Lookout tower. On one hunt I spotted a huge mule deer buck and decided to come back and look for him when deer season opened.
So deer season opens, and my ex-wife and i drive around the mountain and up to the Fire Lookout tower. We park my pickup at the tower and head down the ridge in the direction that I had seen the big buck.
About mid day we hadn't seen that buck, but I find a nice 5x5 bull elk. Deer and elk season was concurrent, so I shoot the bull elk. We go ahead and dress him out and quarter him, and instead of just leaving him there and go home to get my horses, I decide to pack one quarter down the mountain.
The road that we came in on follows the Stillwater River, and I figure that my elk is in a small drainage that is just about straight above the bridge where the road crosses the river. So I strap one 85# hind quarter on to the cheap aluminium pack frame that we had, and tie the 5x5 antlers on top of the pack. I told my wife to go back to the truck and drive down to the bridge and I would meet her there. And I grab my 10# rifle and start down the steep draw to the river.
It was probably about a mile straight down that draw to the river, but the draw was steeper that I expected, and the alder and other brush was very thick. I fell a few times going down, and tombled a couple of times. One time the aluminium pack frame broke.
By the time that I reached the bottom of the mountain it was pitch black, it was drizzling rain, and the valley bottom on the side of the river was marshy and full of beaver dams. My ex wife was at the bridge, and we could call to each other, but it was too dark to try to cross that swamp, especially with that heavy pack. So I called to her and told her to come back in the morning.
I then found a dry spot under a spruce tree where I could be out of the rain, and built a small fire from all of the small dead branches at the bottom of the tree. I cut a few strips of meat from the elk quarter and cooked them over the fire. Throught the night I would stoke up the fire, replenish my stash of wood, and get a little sleep until the fire died down and I would wake up shivering.
At daylight the next day, my wife and my boss came back to the bridge. With daylight I could easily find a dry way to the bridge and it only took me about 5 minutes to get there.
The rest of that trip, and coming back with my horses to get the rest of the elk were uneventful, and actually quite easy.
