Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Camping out for elk

I've hunted in Montana's general rifle wilderness hunting a few times now...Once with a 4-man tipi and a partner, once with a 2-man floorless alone, and twice with the tipi and stove alone (heavy pack). Nothing to show for it yet, but enough opportunity to keep me interested. Trailhead elevations are 6000 ish and camps are around 8000. Hike length varies: 4 to 7 miles. Bulls show up all over...woods, open ridgeline at 10000 feet, in the meadow 150 yards from your tent when you're on the hillside a mile away, etc and so on. Sometimes they scream at you from what sounds like right out the tent door in the valley bottom meadow in mid november, at 3:00 am.

Four times isn't a big sample, but enough to identify trends:
**At no point did I/we have any trouble staying dry. This isn't the Cascades, and the snow that falls isn't your typical Cascade Concrete that's more water than ice.
**You'll need to think through water acquisition and storage. Filtering is a bit of a non-starter when it's that cold, some of them are damaged by freezing, but all can simply freeze up. I've used aquamira drops in Alaska, WA, MT and ID with zero issues, including in cold water. Wait a half hour for it to have a chance to work in the cold. You have to make a concerted effort to hydrate; that's helped by warming water and downing a bunch of not-freezing water when you get a chance to do so. Your camelbak tube will freeze hard unless you route it where it's warmed by body heat.
**I sleep really, really well in a 15 degree down bag, covered with a primaloft blanket. The blanket is an extra pound or more, and worth every ounce. Good for packing around to don when sitting also. I store boots and water under the edge of the blanket and they stay thawed. Blanket makes it so you can tent it up around your head and breathe warm air, and you don't need to be so attentive and strict with the mummy hood and baffles. It's just easier and more comfortable.
**The stove is really, really good for morale, but isn't necessary. Nice to sit in a t-shirt and eat dinner at the end of the day. But then you gotta make lunch and go hang your food afterward anyway in the cold and dark. I sleep with my lunch packed and in my tent in grizzly country, alone. Don't tell KC.
**Some portion of your sleeping pad needs to be foam.
**White gas stove is nice...whisperlite or simmerlite. Zero issues in the cold.
**Beeswaxed full grain leather boots under gaiters do fine, no moisture.
**Gaiters go under your outer pants layer to shed deep snow. I know, I know, they don't look nearly as cool that way.

I figure that, compared to a really light AK sheep or WA deer overnighter, I have an extra pants layer (sporthill XC ski pants added to longjohns and kuiu attack pants), an extra insulation layer (light puffy vest in addition to montbell parka), a thicker head covering for sleeping, primaloft blanket, and an extra 3/8" light solid foam pad to go on top of the inflatable pad. Add the wood stove if I'm feeling my oats. And that's about it. Elk means three or more trips out for me, so I don't sweat a little extra weight.

The last time I was up that way, I hiked in to about 7600 ft and made my camp. Had to do a lot of boot-kick snowplow removal, but ended up with a tight tipi pitch with a nice snow fringe, wood stove set up, everything just hunky dory. Got camp up around 2:00 so was heading out for an evening stroll. I walked about 30 FEET away from the tent and the changed perspective allowed me to see a cow elk carcass down in the creek bottom meadow. It was a hunter's kill, a few days old. No bear prints around, but was about 100 yards from my tent. I sacked everything and moved it another couple miles up the trail to 8000 feet, and was thusly tired! That hiking at altitude is rough when I come from where I can throw a potato from my back porch into saltwater.

Make sure your comms are working. My SPOT locator bought the farm after the trailhead check-in, and my wife didn't hear from me for five days. On day six she called a friend that's local, and he indicated he'd ride in to check on me the next morning, or he and his local rescue chopper buddy could fly up there for a looksee within the hour (also said something along the lines of "there's an awful lot of grizzlies up that way"). Wife went for plan B, figuring that she didn't want to be the one responsible for me bleeding out on the trail somewhere. Meanwhile, I'd just finished up a nice conversation with a fellow at the trailhead, then got in the truck and drove to cell coverage, whereupon I called my wife, learned of the copter ride, looked up and saw them fly over me and head up the valley. We all got in touch right about then by text, and met a few hours later at Sir Scott's Oasis, so all's well that ends well, albeit $1000 helo charge later, and I got off easy. Getting feedback on the garmin helps to keep that from happening again.

If you get yourself in good enough shape to hike into wherever it is you intend to go, then you're in good enough shape to stash/hang some extra gear and walk out light through deep snow, I figure, if it comes to that. Maybe I'll get hosed by that someday, but if you don't bother to go, you don't get to go.

How do you guys go about procuring or making water while you are out? I have used the sanitation/filter straws in the past and would have no problem pulling water from a creek and doing that. But how about boiling water or melting snow? What kinds of camp wares (pots, kettles, etc..) do you use? I would think a campfire percolator would work well, but I’m wondering if there are less bulky alternatives that are better suited to backpacking that I’m not aware of.

Of course the filter idea would be my first choice, but that’s assuming we are near running water that doesn’t need to be melted or thawed.

As far as cooking food goes, we will be keeping that part simple with MREs.

All good things to think about! After a little research on this topic I do think I will invest in a good titanium backpacking pot. Thanks, gents!

Next question!

Is it fair to say that bears could still be active as late as early-mid November? I want to say yes but have been told they should be hybernating by then. With that thought in mind and considering that bears have been known to come to kill sites, would it be a bad idea to set up camp in the vicinity of an elk that we have killed, assuming the pack out process will take more than a day?