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

Over the last 12+ years my hauler's have mostly been an Osprey Crescent 90 or an Arcteryx Bora 80... I prefer the Bora.

back half


front half


keeps the groceries from freezing at night


base camp

I’m primarily feeding alfalfa right now to get some growth in the kids. I also supplement grain and calf manna. They are getting big

Brad, Nice bull!

Honest question, not posted at you directly, but for anyone who does a solo pack in hunt with a bedroom on their back.

How much elk meat are guys packing out in one trip?

Example, I’ve packed out quarters, meat pack, cape and horns so many times I’ve lost count...It’s taken me at least 4 trips, sometimes a 5th to finish up...When I’ve done a 100% boning, I’m at 2 very heavy loads. But, I’m a scavenger....I take everything, rib meat, neck and brisket sheets, shank meat. Are you guys forced to leave the grind meat behind for one and done trips? 😎

Nobody is going to bone one clean and do it in one trip. An adult cow will have more than 150lb of meat on it, maybe pushing 200 on a real big one. An adult bull will be considerably heavier.

Beaver, you are an animal!

It takes two horses to carry a bull out. The only bone we leave in is the femurs. A horse can carry a three hundred pound man pretty well. But 200 lb of dead weight on a pack saddle is a pretty hard and fast rule. Unless you are packing on a Belgian, I suppose. Never saw anybody try that.

"Bulls" plural

Another, different Bora:

The above packs are the first pack-out, and contain all my backpack gear, ie., tent, sleeping bag, food, clothes, etc., plus antlers, loins, and tenderloins. Then it's back in over the coming days to take out the rest of the meat. Generally 3 additional trips.

Copy that...Nice bull(s)...Gawd, if I could only like the 308, we could be friends. Grin 😎

Honest question for you Brad. Why do you pack out camp first?

I pack out camp last. For a couple of reasons at least in my mind. One I rather get the meat out of there as fast as possible. Two I still have a camp should I want to take a rest or be forced to due to weather.

I am interested in hearing your reason. Please don't take this as me questioning you. I am not.

No offense taken at all!

This is grizzly country... I frankly don’t fancy leaving $1,000 worth of gear out to get inspected by a bear. I’ve run across several bears in this area. Other spots I’d leave the camp, but not here. Regardless, this area is high enough that even in warm-ish weather the meat is fine if stashed in shade. A lot of the reasoning depends on the spot. I don’t think there’s a “right” answer.

Another pack out:

Is that a satellite dish I see on that strap?

Mine is identical to your Cabela's pack frame, with the exception of about 2 miles of 550 cord wove around it.

Brad I hunt a place on the Rocky Mountain Front with Griz. I guess I have gotten lucky they have never messed with my camp. But I also don't eat there or leave food there. I have been thinking about getting one of those electric fences. I think the fence would be good for wolves too, piece of mind while sleeping. My buddy and I were packing out his elk last season and there were a pack very close to use, though we never did see them. Lucky for me I do most of my hunting here in the Bitterroot so haven't had to deal with Griz yet. Though I know it won't be long before they are here too. Thanks for the response.

We don't have griz here but we do have blackies and cougars and we're certainly not short on wolves. The local paper reported the other day that 2 dogs have been killed by cats in the area we hunt in just the last 2 weeks. I've had to leave meat out overnight a number of times and so far I've been lucky that nothing has found it. It's always a crap shoot that way. The books all say to hang meat at least 10' up and suspended between trees. I'm assuming the authors have never actually tried it with an elk.

Electric fences do work for bears but they're heavy and expensive. The net type work better than the ribbon type but they're almost double the weight and bulk plus costing considerably more. None that I've seen are high enough to keep a wolf or cat from jumping over it. I don't know if a wolf would try to jump one but it easily could if it tried. You'd probably need a 6' fence to be safe from them.

Interesting story about leaving meat overnight: a couple years ago, my partner shot a deer 3 miles back. We're not young bucks anymore (we were 67 & 70 at the time) and we can't backpack meat like you young'uns. This was llama work. We got it into deep shade, skinned it, and laid the deer on the hide. We laid the heart and liver next to it and spread a couple meat bags over it, then covered it with pine boughs. The next morning we came up with the llamas. The pine boughs were still on it but the meat bags were pulled out from under them and dragged 5 yds to the side. The heart and liver were gone but nothing else was touched. We couldn't find a single tooth mark on the carcass. A bear or wolf would have likely eaten from it. The missing giblets was the puzzle. It was too grassy to find any tracks. We figured it was a pine martin or maybe a fox.

Ted, it is indeed... that's the Gen I you sent me a few years back!

The front is loaded with bear. It's time for the control to get shifted to the state for sure. A guy that worked for me is from the front. He got charged 3 or 4 years ago by a boar, and had to put it down.

Another friend used to guide in the Hellroaring area North of Yellowstone used electric fence around the camp because of bears. Course, they were horsepacking.

Like you I keep a clean camp, but I know a curious bear can still wreak havoc on a camp. Regardless, I've never lost an elk to a bear, or any other predator.

I doubt that griz control will ever get turned over to the states. The recent court decision shutting down the hunting shows the anti's are firmly in control. They got blind sided on the wolf hunting and they learned their lesson. It won't happen again.

Back when I had horses I used to hunt the mountains north of West Yellowstone, MT. Some years we, or I, would pack in a camp, other years we would camp at the end of the road. One of the end of road sites had a small (1/4 acre) meadow below the road which was a great place to enclose with an electric wire for the horses. One morning when I walked around checking the wire, I found tracks where during the night a grizzly had walked right up to the wire. He must have touched the wire with his wet nose as the tracks immediately turned and showed that he had run away from it.

Another night we heard a loud commotion from the horses and by the time we got out of the tent to check them they were gone. At daylight the next morning I found tracks where a moose had gone through the wire on one side of the meadow and the horses had gone through it on the other side. I tracked the horses to the far side of an old Forest Service clearcut a mile or more from camp.

Mystery ranch crew cab one pack to do it all!