Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting New to mountain hunting with questions

Hi all,

There are no Asia hunting or Mountain hunting forums so I guess this is the best place to ask. I'm spending a couple of years working in Asia and a coworker and I decided to take advantage of the short flights to do some hunting on this side of the world. We are looking into an Ibex hunt that will be somewhere around 15,000 ft. give or take. Neither he nor I have ever done any high altitude hunting before, but we have a year to prepare.

What do we need to know?

As for me, I will be flying home for Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks so I can do things like try on boots that fit American feet. So what are some good boots for this sort of thing?

Any other equipment we should be looking into?

Obviously we need to be getting ourselves into really good shape. Where we work is close to a tall mountain range so we should be able to get some altitude in over the next year.

What else do we need to know?

Thanks in advance,
Greg

Sounds like a fun plan Greg. Although there are folks on here that spend more time in the mountains then I, my short gear list would be:

great boots
good optics
a well fit pack
good layering system of clothes
a solid tent/sleeping system

Pack - one that will haul the living load in, and the meat load out. JMHO, I prefer one that can be a bag pack, and a frame hauler for the bulk load. Brand - lots of opinions, try as many as you can, there are many folks with more experience than I on "what's best".

Layers - you'll be in single layers on the move, and you'll probably be sweating some even then, you'll need wicking and the ability to dry out if you get overheated. When you stop - typically - you'll be cooling off pretty fast.

What weather season are you expecting to be hunting in?

Ounces are pounds in the high mountains - cut weight where you can, decide early what is critical, and try it out well before you need it on the trip.

I'd use the Equipment Checklist as listed on Asian Mountain Outfitters as a basis for starting to get a handle on the gear needed for that part of the planet.

https://asianmountainoutfitters.com/

At that elevation make sure you have Diamox. It can make or break your trip.

As far as boots go, I've had good luck with Kennetrek Mountain Extreme's and Mountain Guides.

I hunted Kyrgyzstan in August. Weather ranged from 75 degrees and sunny to 15 and a full on blizzard. In the same day.

You're going to want a good spotting scope. Be prepared to take long shots and make sure you have a range finder that compensates for angles.

MOUNTAIN WISDOM – LESSONS LEARNED

If you are considering a big game hunt in the mountains then here are some tips that might increase your enjoyment of the trip.

MOUNTAIN AIR: Mountain air is very different than what you may be used to. It is thin and dry. There is simply less air to breathe than you may be accustomed to and the relative humidity is low. The low humidity has several negative effects that your body may not be accustomed to. The dry air creates some extreme temperature variations. It’s common for night time lows to be in the teens and daytime highs to be in the 60s. This means that you can be hypothermic in the morning and experience heat exhaustion in the afternoon of the same day. Short afternoon storms are common and these often drop the temperature by 30 degrees. When combined with some wind and some sweaty clothes, that can be deadly if you don’t react properly.

DEHYDRATION: With every breath, you humidify the air that you breathe. So you are constantly losing body moisture and you don’t realize it and dehydration is a very real concern. Also your perspiration evaporates so rapidly that you often don’t realize that you are sweating. One more thing to consider is that when it's cold you often don't think of drinking when you should. All of these factors can lead to dehydration, which can cause a host of medical problems and it's often a contributor to altitude sickness. Drink at least two quarts of water every day.

LAYERING: Experienced mountain hikers dress in many thin layers and don’t use one big coat, so they can adapt their clothing to a changing environment. When you sit down to rest, put on a jacket or sweater right away. Don’t wait to get cold. It’s too hard to warm up again. Try to avoid cotton clothing. It's deadly in cold wet weather because it soaks up water like a sponge and encourages hypothermia. Wool and wool/synthetic blends, polypropylene and polyester fleece are best because they keep you warm even when wet. I wear a set of polypropylene long johns, wool trousers, a long-sleeved synthetic shirt, a ball cap, gloves, wool socks, gaiters and good boots. I also have in my pack a bandanna (the only cotton that I carry), a fleece hoodie, a knitted watch cap, vest with synthetic insulation and a Gortex/Nylon parka with a hood, extra gloves and extra socks. Your parka should have a layer of Gortex or one of the knockoffs, that actually work like Gortex is supposed to work.

HEAT EXHAUSTION: Heat exhaustion (hyperthermia) results in headache, dizziness, weakness and fainting. It can also progress to coma and death (heat stroke). It’s more common in high humidity environments but it happens in the mountains too. If you start feeling like you are going to faint, then sit down in the shade, drink some water, rub a wet bandanna on your neck and head. Dunk your head in a stream if one’s convenient. Rest for a while and you most likely will recover quickly. Then don’t over exert yourself until it’s cooler.

HYPOTHERMIA: Hypothermia use to be called exposure or freezing to death. Essentially any time that your core temperature drops too low, your body automatically reacts to try to keep the core warm by redirecting blood and the warmth that comes with it, from your limbs and brain, to the core. So your body starts robbing your brain of oxygen. Seventy-five percent of your blood goes to your brain through your neck. If your toes get cold, put on a hat and something to keep your neck warm. This retains warmth that can be shared with all body parts. The first signs of hypothermia are uncontrollable shivering. Then it progresses to slurred speech, cold fingers and toes, weakness, dizziness and eventually coma a death. It can occur at relatively warm temperatures when you are sweating, and weather conditions conspire to drop the air temperature rapidly. Being prepared with the proper layering system of clothing and using the extra layers when necessary, is the best way to avoid hypothermia.

FROST BITE: Frost bite occurs when body parts freeze. The lymph and blood freeze first but eventually body tissues also freeze. This causes damage that may never heal properly and cannot be regenerated. Frost bite will occur first in extremities; toes, fingers, ears, nose, and cheeks. The best way to prevent frost bite is to keep those areas warm and dry and protected from the wind. I carry extra socks, an extra pair of gloves, a fleece hoodie, and a bandanna. I use to carry a balaclava and that works great but a bandanna has so many other uses that even if I carry a balaclava, I still carry a bandanna. I use the bandanna to keep the wind off of my face and I cover my ears with a knitted watch cap and hood.

ALTITUDE SICKNESS: The two most serious types of altitude sickness are HAPE (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema) and HACE (High Altitude Cerebral Edema). HAPE is fluid in the lungs and you can self-diagnose it when you feel gurgling in your lungs or pain in the chest. If your breath is condensing and your friends aren't condensing, then you may have fluid in your lungs. HACE is fluid on the brain. You can self-diagnose it when you get dizzy and stay dizzy for more than a minute or so. If one of your hunting partners goes unconscious or doesn't wake up in the morning, you need to transport him to lower elevation immediately to save his life. The only effective field remedy for HAPE and HACE requires an item called a Gamow Bag and you won't have one. So DESCEND! DESCEND! DESCEND! Get to lower elevation immediately if you want to live. Fortunately HAPE and HACE are both rare (but not unheard of) below 10,000' elevation.

The most common type and the least severe is AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness). It's often associated with dehydration. Its' symptoms are similar to those of influenza and they may include mild headache, nausea, vomiting, lassitude, loss of appetite, and periodic breathing (waking up gasping for air). Common Aspirin and Tums can help because they coincidentally contains the just the kind of ingredients that your body needs and it is a mild astringent that reduces the effects of dehydration. Diamox is the brand name of a prescription drug (acetazolamide) that works for some people. Start taking it a couple of days before you begin to ascend. But it doesn't work for everyone and there are some potentially miserable side effects. In most cases, if you rest for a couple of days, drink lots of liquids, and take Aspirin and Tums, AMS will subside and you can start enjoying yourself.

The best way to avoid altitude sickness is to ascend slowly, at the rate of 1,000' per day. But often you don't have that much time. So get in good shape now. Good shape means strong heart and lungs. Good exercises include running stairs, swimming, bicycling, or any other kind of exercise that works the heart and lungs. However sometimes even the best athletes can get altitude sickness, so don't count on that being the cure all. Get to high elevation a few days early and just lounge around for a few days before you start exerting yourself. Stay hydrated, avoid alcohol and coffee or any other kind of diuretic. Take one Aspirin and one Tums each day. Be alert to the symptoms mentioned and react appropriately if they occur.

Also try to develop a technique called pressure breathing. Essentially you consciously make your lungs inhale and exhale before you feel the need to breather heavy. If you wait until you need the air then it’s too late and you are always out of breath. A logical extension of pressure breathing is a technique called the rest step. You generate a rhythm between your body effort and your lungs so that you move slower using less energy, and so you have air before you need it; step-breathe-pause-breathe, step-breathe-pause-breathe, repeat, etc.

MOUNTAIN COMFORT - SLEEPING WARM: There’s an art to keeping warm when sleeping in temperatures below zero. Start by insulating yourself from the frozen ground and then use a really good sleeping bag. I suggest that you use both a closed cell foam sleeping pad and an insulated pad like a Thermarest “Camprest” or “NeoAir” or Big Agnes “Insulated Air Core”. You need a mummy style sleeping bag rated at 0° or colder.



A good 4-season backpack tent with a vestibule will make a big difference. It's important to keep the inside of the tent dry and free of snow. So leave your boots in the vestibule. Store your boots with the laces pulled wide open so you can get your boots on in the morning when they're frozen. One big advantage of sleeping directly on the snow is that there won't be any rocks, sticks or bumps under you and the snow will eventually conform to your body contours. If you setup your tent on the snow then first put a light waterproof tarp on the inside of the floor. Any moisture will run under the tarp and freeze between the tarp and the tent floor.

Put everything in stuff sacks, one sack for each type of stuff and use those stuff sacks to build a nest inside the tent. This keeps you from rolling off the sleeping pads onto the frozen floor of the tent. Wear only clean dry clothing to bed. Wet clothes, even those wet with only perspiration, will take several hours to dry. Wear your knitted hat to bed as a nightcap. Also sleep 2 to a tent and the extra body heat will make a difference. Bring a wide mouth pee bottle so that you can urinate in the middle of the night without leaving the tent.



If your feet get cold, zip up your coat and slip it over the bottom of your sleeping bag. Or you can put a couple of hand warmer packs in the bottom of your sleeping bag. If your chest is cold, put your coat or vest on inside the sleeping bag.

Bring a good thermos with an insulator. I couldn't find an insulator big enough to take a thermos, so I built my own using foam rubber and duct tape. At night first temper the thermos and then fill it with boiling water and put it inside the insulator and then inside your backpack. In the morning you have hot water for instant cocoa and oatmeal without getting out of your bag.

Leave your water bladder at home because the hose will freeze solid. Take a metal water bottle and store it upside down at night so the lid won’t freeze shut. You can thaw the main body of the bottle over your camp stove.

Don’t let your water filter freeze. If it freezes you can’t use it and it might crack the ceramic filter. First purge the filter the best that you can, then put it in a ZipLok bag inside your sleeping bag.

When car camping in a bigger tent, I take a small propane space heater and I place it close to my sleeping bag so, in the morning, I can reach over and start it running without getting out of my sleeping bag. I also take an extra foam pad and lay it next to my sleeping bag so I can stand on it instead of the frozen floor.

MAPS: Buy and use a good map and compass. A GPS unit is not a subnstitute for a map and compass. It is an augmentation.

This is a topic that could be broken down into many sub-topics and go on for a long time. Way too much about this topic for one post.

My base camp where I am working in the Andes Mountains is 14,500'. I would like to offer the following from experience over the years as a starter:

Boots: This is the number one piece of equipment. Socks are number two. From experience, do not go less than a medium weight boot and if you are in the rocks
much of the time, a good heavy-weight boot should be considered. Socks need to be top-shelf merino wool socks and don't be shocked to spend $30 or more a pair for the right socks.

A mistake in this area, specifically blisters or loose, unstable boots will ruin your trip. The boots need to be well broken in. I wear mine daily for several months before working my way up to longer hikes. When I go to Peru, I am positive I'll have zero boot issues with the preps made beforehand and so far, so good. For the 2020 trip, I will be upgrading to heavier boots as it will be 100% in the rocks this time where the medium-weight boots are border-line.

Cotton kills: No cotton, ever, in the mountains. Especially underwear. It gets cold and weather changes come fast in the mountains. You can have sunshine, rain, and snow in the same day. When you get wet, and you will, you need clothes that respond accordingly. Cotton is completely miserable in wet and cold conditions and it can kill you through heat loss. Think wool and synthetics.

If you are in an area that is hot, like the dessert, cotton can be quite comfortable and would be a prime choice.

The equipment choices are endless. If you have guides, horses, and folks to carry your stuff the choices are easier to make. If you are carrying your own gear, choose wisely.

Optics trump the rifle choice. Optics should be your costliest hunting specific gear. If you choose poorly in this area, you will ruin the trip. Do not skimp on the optics. Consider a fixed power scope if this rifle is for mountains only. Like a 6x42 with a German #4 reticle and made somewhere in Germany or close by.

IMO, it is rude to carry anything other than a control round feed rifle in the mountains like the Mauser 98 and its variants like the Winchester Mod. 70.

Caliber needs to be flat shooting and have the capability at longer distances. There are many good choices.

Shooting sticks are a necessity with the longer ranges in the Mountains.

As stated earlier, this can't be covered with one post.

Good luck and enjoy this rare opportunity you'll treasure the rest of your life.

I wrote this article as a resource for people traveling by air to hunt in Alaska. Much of it is applicable to traveling to hunt anywhere. I have made a cursory effort to remove or modify those things that apply strictly to Alaska.

THE TRAVELING HUNTER
I went on my first out-of-state expedition in 1987 and repeated the adventure every two or three years since then. I prefer to do everything myself and reap the greater personal satisfaction and lower cost that comes from doing it myself. If I had to pay an outfitter, I couldn't afford to go as often. So all of my out-of-state hunting trips have been DIY hunts where we did all the recon and planning (that’s half the fun) and provided all of our own camping gear and food. We contracted with locals for transportation, horses, rafts, etc., but that’s about it. Over the years, I've had questions and encountered problems. I wrote down the answers and solutions and have updated the list after every trip. Here's the latest version.



Modern restrictions and costs associated with baggage when flying make it critical that you keep down the weight and bulk of what you take. When I fly, I think of the trip as a backpack hunt whether or not I’m actually backpacking. I assume that everything that I take will eventually end up on my back in a pack. That strategy automatically keeps the weight and bulk to a minimum.

A 100 quart Igloo or Coleman cooler is the largest that the US Postal Service will accept without charging extra for over-sized packages. I don't know about other countries. Avoid wheels and small door in the top lid. The wheels make the cooler heavier and they take up room that could be filled with contents. The door makes the cooler leak in the rain. I mail a 120-quart Igloo cooler via US Postal Service. It is mostly filled with freeze-dried and dehydrated food and other disposable/consumable stuff. Make sure you insure your mail and mark your name and address on the outside with magic marker, then seal it shut with strapping tape. I have mailed two containers in both directions because airline baggage rates are a lot higher than US Postal Service rates. Freeze your meat and put it in the cooler and carry it home as your baggage on the airplane. It will stay frozen for at least 24 hours.

On the departing trip I check only a rifle case and one large duffel bag or Duluth Bag filled with clothes and camping gear. I also take two carry-on items. One is a small hunting daypack filled mostly with travel items. The other was a small duffel bag that I leave at the trailhead or landing strip. It is filled with my first set of hunting clothes and a pair of boots. Make sure that there are no TSA prohibited items in your carry-ons.

Gun Case: needs to be very sturdy and have locks. I use a Cabelas two-gun "Bulletproof" gun case, which works OK. There are many that aren't as good and a few that are better. I put all my fragile optics (range finder, camera, GPS, binoculars, etc.) inside the gun case along with rifle and ammo. You must declare your firearm at the ticket counter and have it inspected by TSA, then locked. Then you give it to the ticket agent at the counter. Your gun case will be delivered at a location or window separate from regular baggage.

Postal Service: You don't want things to get lost so mark your name and address on the outside of all packages in such a way that it can't possibly get lost, torn off, etc. They will accept some really odd looking packages so long as they are within certain dimensional restrictions. I have mailed two sets of caribou antlers via US Postal Service and they both arrived in perfect condition. Cut the skull plate in half and nest one antler inside the other, tape them together and cover all the points with cardboard and duct tape. It looks really awkward but works fine. I also mail back my large duffel bag full of clothes and camping gear. I used the same cooler to carry frozen meat, as my luggage on the plane and I mailed my gear home, again with USPS. I froze the meat, put it in the cooler and it was still frozen when I got home. I have subsequently arranged to become a "known shipper" with Alaska Airlines so that I can ship via frozen air cargo. If you are hunting in another country, you might want to investigate doing the same thing with a local airline.

I’ve flown and camped on all of my Alaska hunts, three trips onto Mount McKinley, seven hunting trips, and a bunch of trips in the lower forty-eight. You really have to know what you are doing and be very organized, if you are flying to a remote spot in Alaska and you better have good gear because if something fails, you don’t have any backup.

I use an MSR Whisperlite or Dragonfly stove for cold weather and MSR Pocket Rocket or Optimus Crux Isobutane stove for warm weather. I use propane appliances when base camping.

For base camping I use a Cabelas Instinct-6 tent as a group cook shack. The dome tent takes up less room when packed, is lighter, and is easier to setup and break down than a wall tent. But it’s not big enough to use a wood burning stove like a wall tent. There are always trade-offs. We sleep in a Cabelas XPG Expedition, 4-season, 4-person tent for two people.

If it's warm, you will have to be concerned with keeping your meat from spoiling while waiting to return to the bush community. We put our meat in game bags, kept it clean and hung it up every night covered by a tarp to keep it dry. We saw that some other hunters had placed their meat in a side braid of the river so that the cold water kept the meat cool. We also used Game Saver citric acid spray. You mix the powder with water in a spray bottle and it works great. I ordered it over the Internet from Indian Valley Meat Co., in Indian Valley, AK. http://www.indianvalleymeats.com/about.htm

We carry small Motorola radios in case of emergency. We didn’t use them though, because radio recon for hunting is illegal. If you communicate via radio, your hunting is done for the day.

We use Leupold 10x42 binoculars in 2007. In 2009, my buddy showed up with a pair of Zeis 15x56 binos mounted on a tripod and used them to spot a black bear from five miles away. So I bought a pair of Nikon Oculus 15x56 binoculars and a tripod. We both had chest harnesses attached to our binos.

I use T/C Icon Weathershield 30-06 rifle with Leupold VX-III 3.5x10x40 scope and Warne rings when I hunt in Alaska.

My buddy took some T.T.C. (Taxidermy Trophy Compound) https://www.bringmin.com/catalog/index.php and used it to treat the capes in the field. It’s lighter than salt. If you are not returning home immediately, put some “Stop Rot” on the cape. Once I left mine at the meat processor for two weeks and instructed them to keep it frozen. They put it in a cooler (not a freezer) and it was ruined.

The meat of a big bull elk will fill two 100 quart coolers. Including the ice, a caribou, mule deer, axis deer, or big whitetail deer will fill one 100 quart cooler. You can use a smaller cooler when hunting antelope.

Good luck, have a great adventure and a safe hunt.

KC

Excellent recommendations by KC and FSJeeper.

Would get close to the target altitude while training. Some people, although in great physical condition can only travel to lower altitudes without suffering AMS. Find out what YOUR limits are.

Would also recommend switching the bandanna to a shemagh for wind, dust and sun protection. Tactical Gear.com for as good or better than the sandbox country offerings.

Would encourage taking good goggles. Military style are good, but the Smith or equivalent provide better ventilation and field-of-view.

Would take a small roll of surgical tape for foot and digit repairs. Wrap a few turns of Gorilla tape around your water bottle for gear repairs.

Would DWR all outerwear gear and tent materials.

Educate yourself on the local flora and fauna encountered in the region contemplated for your operations.

Are the local inhabitants and authorities of the area likely to be helpful or potentially an obstacle?

Really study the weather and forecasted conditions.

Will this be DIY or guided/outfitted?

Um.... why is that?

Dude, if you have to ask.......

Personally, I wondered about this one:



To me, longer ranges in mountains above 15K means shooting prone with a rest. A pack does nicely.

As long as we're on that subject, to the OP my advice is, your pack is second only to your boots, don't cut corners. If you're able, try out some from KIfaru, Mystery Ranch, Stone Glacier, and/or Seek Outside. WHichever you choose, load it up with a heavy load and put some miles on ot before your trip to make sure it's right for you.

Thanks for all that. There's a lot to read through here, and since I'm currently starting my work day I'll have to spend some quality time on this thread later.

We haven't actually booked yet, but the hunts we are looking at are in Tajikistan. We will be hosted by a mountain village and guided by the villagers. The season runs from Nov. to Feb. I'm thinking right now we will probably hunt in Dec. As I understand it, the winters there are relatively dry, but I'm planning on snow just to be safe rather than sorry.

60 miles from here is a peak that tops out a little below 14,000. And they get taller the farther away you get so we may be able to get up around or above 15,000 next year before the hunt.

And, FWIW, we will probably have to rent rifles once we get there since we can't bring our rifles to where we work now. So that's an extra complication.

Again, thanks,
Greg

This. A pack that fits well and can carry a load is about as important as boots that fit properly.

Prone isn't always possible in the mountains, so some type of rest that you can use from sitting is handy. I personally like using my trekking poles with the wrist loop of each wrapped around the handle of the other.

With the advancement of fabric technology and quix down, there is no reason to have improper clothing. It ain't cheap so take care of it and someday it may save your life.

Greg,

In this region especially, you may find you won't be packing much as you think. The locals will most likely not want you packing anything heavy so you can enjoy your hunt. You may end up sporting a day pack most of the trip at best. Check with your guide and make sure. In Africa, they would not even let me carry my own rifle.

The earlier comment about a Controlled Round Feed rifle was for fun to stir up the push feed boys. In the mountains on wilderness hunts, I do feel the CRF bolt action rifle is the most reliable choice.

The comment on the shooting sticks I stand by. They weigh nothing and the ones I have break-down like bungee cord tent poles into a small package. They mobilize extremely fast, as in instantly, and provide a good steady rest when paired with a proper fitting rifle sling. Even though most shots will be long distance and you'll have time to position yourself in the optimum position, using whatever resources give you the optimum shooting advantage, you should not plan on being able to shoot prone or even have time to position your pack and settle in using it as a rifle rest. Lots of scenarios that could arise where shooting sticks would be a welcomed option.

Looks like a good adventure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTm06kM4aUI


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXjTc2xY1tY

Looks like the OP may be limited to what his guide has available but this does pique my curiosity. I own CRFs mostly, but In my opinion, CRF vs push feed is way down on the list of criteria I'd use to choose a rifle for a mountain hunt.

What is it about a push-feed action that makes it not reliable enough for a mountain hunt?

SP, I agree the CRF and PF bolt action design is not a significant priority for equipment choice on this hunt. For "normal" hunting under "normal" conditions, there is no "practical" difference in reliability between a push feed and controlled round feed bolt action rifles.

It is, within the realm of possibilities, a controlled round feed rifle could be the difference between life and death in dangerous game hunting.

In the heat of battle during war campaigns, and after testing earlier designs with millions of rifles, the push feed limitations were discovered. These limitations included accidental double loading with FMJ spitzers firing off the cartridge in the chamber in the shooter's face and failure to feed due to a round being bumped out of the loading port during loading. Mauser upgraded the 1889-1891 bolt action to the1898 design for a reason. To increase reliability, function, and to save lives. This upgrade required retooling and significant expense and the improved reliability and function were deemed worth the cost over 130 years ago.

Even the Savage 1895-1899 model lever-action was purpose-built to be Control Round Feed to compete in the military trials and to counter the issues uncovered with the push feed design rifles.

The Controlled Round Feed argument was won a long time ago.

The Push Feed design persists because it is cheaper to manufacture.

As for Greg's hunt and renting a rifle in Tajikistan, my money will be on it being a Controlled Round Feed bolt action rifle design they give him. There aren't many Remingtons bouncing around that part of the world in the hands of locals.

Looks like it worked. I'm with Smoke on this one. I hunt with a few CRF rifles and a few PFs. I'd take the fieldcraft over any model 70 I've ever met. Any mouser too.

So, now that this thread has achieved full derailment... OP, be sure to check in and post some pics of the training and the hunt. Sounds awesome.