Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Elk Pack Out...What’s your hauler?

I packed with an ALICE for years. God I hate that pack. Get a new pack that holds the load more vertically and close in and has load lifters. You'll thank me.

Those with bungees and ratchet straps just need to learn a trucker's hitch and carry para cord.

Death machines yes.

Good idea...I can still cut the paracord off my pack when my trucker’s hitch turns into a square knot. 😜

And there's that. I go through miles of the stuff. It's used to keep elk from sliding, hang quarters if being left, tie up quarters for dragging, and tying onto the pack. It's super light, cheap, ties well, and it's strong. It cuts into your hands if you pull it so you have to fashion a handle or something if you want to pull on it.

Our local Ace Hardware sells roll ends of paracord, 4 100' coils for $10. Colors are mixed and some coils will be varying color. At that price, you can use it for anything. I don't know if all Ace's have it, though.

Can't use a packboat up here, streams aren't big enough.

I buy 100 ft lengths of new clothes line at Walmart. Not as strong as paracord, but never had it break

This reminded me of a spike bull that I killed one year high up on a fairly open, steep mountain. After I field dressed the bull I started to drag him down the mountain. It was steep enough that after I would drag him a few yards, he would start sliding faster than I wanted to stay in front of him, so I would step aside and he would keep sliding down until he would pile up on a tree. I'd then get down to him and repeat the process. After doing that several times I decided to get him sliding, then to jump on him and ride him down, and to jump off just before he would hit a tree.

The mountain was steep enough for a good half mile that I was able to "ride" that elk down almost to the bottom. When I got to the bottom I walked the couple of miles back to my camp where I got my horses and they carried him out the rest of the way.

“Mule Tape” was mentioned before...It’s extremely strong for many field uses, and light....Amazon or eBay 😎

I've often thought that if I could get (2) 1000 ft spools of paracord or something similar I'd like to try rigging a reverse zipline with a suspension line and a haul line.

Hmmm, not sure about that Al. Think I’m gonna stay with tying quarters on my pack with the stuff. Would love to see you do it though 😎

Aside, I forgot to take pictures of my Capstan set up today before I left town for a few days...I’ve gotten a few PM’s asking to see what I’m using...Have to wait until I get back home...😎

A zipline needs a cable FAR stronger than the weight being moved, plus the posts at both ends have to be extremely strong. It wouldn't take much weight at all to break a 1000' paracord stretched between 2 trees. I've long since forgotten the math involved but a weight hanging in the middle of a stretched cable will exert far more tension on both sides of the rope than it would if it was just hanging straight down on the cable. The tighter the cable, the greater the stress on each side.
A poor man's winch can be rigged with a cable between a stuck car and an anchor by getting the cable as tight as possible then pulling at a 90 degree angle in the middle of the cable.

Someone asked me the other day if alpacas could be used for packing. In short, don't bother. They don't have the bone structure for carrying weight plus they're just too small. Goats or llamas will do you a much better job and cost a lot less. I wouldn't put more than 15 to 20 lb on an alpaca. They'll be more prone to injury on the trail than either llamas or goats because of their light bone structure and they cost too much to risk injury like that.

I'd like to see the ciphering behind that.

Here's 1 site with something to play with. There are others. It's been 50 years since I had to calculate anything like that and I've long forgotten how it's done. HANGING MASS

This is also important when stretching a rope between 2 trees for hanging meat...or a hammock. A person's weight in a tightly stretched hammock will put significantly more stress on the ropes than a with a sagging hammock.

Cabela's Alaskan II works just right for me...

I think it's a leverage thing, maybe someone will explain.


I do know this.

It you are using a rope to control how a tree falls.

You can put more force on the tree if you tie the rope to something than if you just pull on the end.

Sorry I missed this. I use Alpine and Alpine crosses. I think they are the easiest to find with good size. If I bred my own I would do Alpines hybridized with any of the Swiss type breeds (Alpine, Toggenburg, Oberhasli, Saanen). Two of my best kids are Saanen and Togg crosses.

Plan about $30-$40 per goat for feed per month. I run pretty close to $200 for my 7 each month. You may not need or want 7, but my hope was to be able to handle a camp for 2-3 guys and one elk out on the same trip. 6 would probably do that.

Just for comparison, my 5 llamas will eat a bit less than 1/2 bale of grass hay a day, total. Grass hay bales usually run in the 70 to 80lb range so a ton will last about 50 days. Right now around here grass hay is selling for about $9/bale or $225/ton. That works out to about $25 to 27/llama/month. They have an extremely efficient feed conversion rate and will eat far less per lb of body weight than most other large animals. You can feed them alfalfa but they get too fat on it. In the spring, you have to work harder to get the fat off to get them in shape for packing.

Kuiu Icon 5200 and my legs.