Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Anyone Use a Sled?

For backcountry camping?

It's been a while but I used to take a plastic kids sled and load it with enough gear and food for a long weekend...

Does anyone today make a sled designed for backcountry travel?

I've experimented with sleds, to use behind me skiing. They are usually called "pulks" when used that way. Here is a link to build your own.

http://www.snowshoemag.com/2012/01/10/building-a-pulk-sled/

Just google "ski pulk" and you'll get tons of results. The key is having a stiff connection between your hips and the sled, so when going downhill it doesn't slide up on you and the momentum actually pushes you faster. It keeps a solid connection at all times.

My homemade pulks are usually a bear to ski with. I've always thought about getting an old pair of xcountry skis to attach to the bottom of any old sled to help it slide and use my removeable backpack hip belt for an attachment. Plus, if you set the right ski width on the pulk, it would track in your own ski (or snowshoe) tracks making it slide even better.

I've used them quite a bit during the winter and they can be nice but it depends on the terrain and the amount of gear. If you've got lots of gear and relatively wide trails they work fine. But if your talking narrow trails, lots sidehilling, tight terrain, bush whacking, etc. they can be more trouble than they are worth. Throw in some slick, crusty snow and they can pull you around as much as you pull them. But your mileage may vary.

I love mine for winter camping and for hauling an elk out in snow. They aren't cheap, but make life easier in most instances. Switchbacks are also a pain in the butt, mine does pretty well sidehilling if you have it loaded bottom heavy.

http://www.kifaru.net/sleds.html

I used a cheapo 10 dollar sled to get all four quarters and pelt out of a cow elk in one go, with about 30 inches of fresh snow. I used the HOKS as skis. It was close to two miles and 1500 feet of downhill. It was bone in, probably 250'lbs or close to it. It was not fancy, but very effective with very few problems.

johnw;
Thanks for the interesting topic and for those who've responded thus far.

We've been using cheap ($15-$20 Cdn) 5'6" molded plastic toboggans for game extraction for a number of years now - when they were much younger our girls dubbed it "the dead sled."

If memory serves we're on either number 5 or 6 now, as they don't last forever when used on rocks.

In this photo taken by my good wife, you can sort of make out the sled being pulled by me and loaded with a pretty good sized mulie buck that our youngest had shot that morning.



One of the modifications we've found that makes these toboggans a bit more user friendly is that I lash two of them together to make them a bit stiffer.

Here is a bit better photo of a whitetail lashed into it which shows how the pull rope has been laced into the combined sleds to provide loops for the lash rope, hold the two sandwiched toboggans together and provide a good enough purchase on the sleds to not pull out in an inopportune moment.


As has been noted by a couple of contributors above me, if the terrain involves a lot of side hill work then life can get plenty sporty in short order.

For less than ideal terrain I'll attach a tail rope on the sled and walk behind while steering with the front rope and holding it back with the tail rope. This method has proven fairly successful for us, but again when one has a couple of moose hindquarters lashed in the fun can indeed multiply quickly.

I'd never considered having a solid connection to me as is pictured in the links. While I can see it being of some use in fairly level terrain, I can't begin to conceive how it wouldn't lead to grief on side hill or off trail use.

Anyway hopefully that was some use to someone out there this blustery morning. Thanks again for the informative reading and good luck on your upcoming hunts.

Regards,
Dwayne

That is a hell of a good buck!!

Another sled that works very well is the poly calf sleds that ranchers us for hauling newborn calves back to the shed. They are deeper then a kids sled and are heavier duty to with stand more use.

I've hauled out two moose and an elk in this one - that's a boned cow elk minus one hind. The hide's on top. The model is the "Beast."

I added the PVC stays and run them to a hip belt, or a day pack. The stays are OK for a light load but as soon as I headed down a slight decline with a game-loaded sled the stays collapsed the sled came past me. I removed then, ran a rope at the rear of the sled, and I "rode" it down the hill, attempting to steer from the rear.

This site: http://www.skipulk.com/ has a very informative pdf book on building pulks ranging from simple (like mine) to much more complex.

You can always buy a fancy sled from Kifaru.

That buck is an absolute BRUISER!

Sans snow, a bicycle makes more sense. Ask the Vietcong.

My son dubbed ours the "dead sled" years ago... About the time he got big enough to pull it, I think...

Some good ideas on here, and i like the calf sleds, too...

The one I've been using for a long time has the word "expedition" molded into it, but it is little more than a heavy duty kids plastic sled... Probably 60x22"...

I have seen some seemingly very heavy duty plastic sleds over the years. Many of them were cracked, and I wonder if they weren't too rigid and lacked flexibility in the cold???

2 sleds nested and lashed together is a cool idea...

Snow? We don' need no steenking snow!

My girl kid's blackie.

I had not considered dragging on bare ground but it seems to be worthwhile for someone to do it twice.
-for a full discussion on pulling in winter get the Snow Walker's Companion by Conover $25, 244 pages including building toboganns from thick plastic sheeting, stoves, tents etc.
-as some of the above sites mention you need fins to keep it tracking straight on side hills or have one rope at each end with 2 people preferably controlling the sled if available

It beats the hell out of carrying a bear on a pole.

a bit rare to have snow during the firearms deer season here...
read about using a plastic sled for deer many years ago, and have been doing it since... snow or no...

good bear and deer pics...

Anybody have any other interesting sites or bullshit to share with the group about pulks and their use. Any other homebrew setups would be cool. Or turnkeys that aren't 500 bucks?

I need a new hobby this winter, plus I figure if I spend a lot of time living in a tent in the dead of winter, it'll suck less when it's 30 in November.

Here you go Dan:
http://www.hillpeoplegear.com/FreeResources/PulkInstructions/tabid/806/Default.aspx

Another option is Game Glide. They make a tarp like setup designed to make dragging easy. It could use better rope and connections, but it does ease the effort of dragging. It's a one use thing, throw it away when done. They are pretty cheap though and light enough to pack in with you (without the harness I think they are maybe 6 ounces).