Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting How much weight do you pack out?

I say that we pack out between 60-100lbs when successful shooting an elk in a no vehicle area which is almost every elk I’ve killed - but I’ve never actually weighed my frame packs when we arrived back at camp - has anybody & what was the weight “coming out heavy”?

None. I'm too old for that backpacking nonsense so I got smart about it.

The back legs go on one mule.

The front legs, back straps, rib meat etc on the other. ( we call it belly meat, two even pillow cases)

We try to use a scale . Cans of beverages weigh about a pound to even em up. Or rocks.

Bone if full quarters if the distance is not over a mile. Start boning things out if it's further.

I’ve carried them boned out, bone in the quarters & just bone in the front quarters to reduce load weights And occasionally in panniers but my guesstimate is exactly that. Everyone is as tired as me and doesn’t think to put them on a scale????

I've weighed them. They are usually in the upper 80's for hind quarters, that's pack, meat, everything on my back excluding the rifle.

I've never put them on a scale but i'm pretty sure the weight varies with time. As in, when I put the pack on my back, it feels like about 60#. When I'm halfway to the truck, it goes 80-90#, and by the time I get to the truck, I reckon it's about 150.

Seriously though, never weighed one but I don't think I've ever gone over about 75. Never had a need to.

One hind quarter or two front quarters, or a load of assorted neck, rib, loin pieces. Bone in unless enough time has passed for rigor to end and meat to return to relaxed condition.

Thanks - that was what I was thinking, last year I carried 2 hind quarters from a good sized cow but mostly dragged & slid one of them. I whined about how heavy my pack was one year picked up my cousin’s and it weighed just about the same with no whining included.

Same here. If God wanted you to carry things on your back, He would not have invented Sawbucks or Deckers.

I don’t hunt elk in places that require nasty packouts. I get it quartered up, get some air circulating around it. Then I’ll carry a front quarter out with all my gear. Come back for the rest with a pack made for hauling meat.

I'v packed out 100 pounds in a pack frame. One time when I was hunting with one of my friends, who is older, and another buddy of ours, I ended up packing out the whole elk. My buddy quartered the cow up and helped put the meat in my pack frame. It was all up hill to the truck, but that was only about a 1/4 mile away. My buddy and I were helping the old timer get his last elk.

Two of us packed a spike out 1 trip, when we got to the cabin I weighed the packs, mine was 87 and the other 81, only time I've weighed one.

Usually I guesstimate I put 60 per trip, last bull I packed out took 5 trips and 2 days.

Kent

Maybe 20 years ago, my partner and I packed out a medium sized bull 4 miles in 1 trip with a standard, garden variety wheelbarrow. Granted, it was on a logging road and 95% downhill. The short uphill sections got old very fast, though. A couple years later, I tried it myself with a spike. I discovered that you don't want a cheap K-Mart type wheelbarrow for that. It collapsed and is still up there, hidden in a brushy draw.

depends on the mood of my horses and pack mules

now days use a dual wheeled cart i purchased from Cabelas, my youth days are now long gone ,my son is a big help too ,i no longer elk hunt without my son with.

It is usually 4 trips for boned out meat and head/antlers..

Several years ago a much younger friend and I brought out my 5x5 in one trip...4.5 miles Our packs were even except for the fact I had head/antlers along with gun and gear..... At 53 I know I'll never do that again.

I have probably packed 80, but weighing the risk of injury in rough terrain I generally go with the more trips option.

I have packed two (2) spike elk quarters out on a “freighter” frame......but, that was quite a few years ago. Now, one quarter from an average 6 point bull is a pretty darn good load! My wife has packed out several quarters, when we were younger. The majority of our packing jobs were less than 2 miles, most were probably around 1 mile! memtb

I almost drowned when I was 16 and was packing about 120 lb moose quarter on a frame in the dark and fell off of a beaver dam into water that was about 8 ft deep and muddy. I didn't want to lose the meat so I made it but it was a cool S O B evening and I had to strip and build a bonfire in order not to go into shock.

I have done some short heavy packs with moose( big ones) where packs were more than 300lbs but my last goat hunt was tough(three years ago). I packed the whole boned goat and gear from 1 mile above the upper Barnard Airstrip to the Chitina River Strip. This might not seem that rugged to you elk hunters but Gary the pilot weighed the pack at 204lbs when we got to McCarthy. That was 24 miles of pure glacial warzone(crevasses, morraine and mud-hell). It took me two twenty hour days to get to the bottom. I ate that goat all the way down the mountain. The experience was tough enough that I was hallucinating at the end of the pack.