Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting horses for the high country?

I have long had an interest in horseback riding. My idea is to take some lessons to learn how to handle horses with the main goal is to go on backcountry trips. That would include camping and riding long distances into elk hunting areas. Is this a good method of elk hunting? Wheeled vehicles are not permitted in federally designated wilderness areas. Are there many horsemen here on the forum? What would you recommend for training for the back country? I do a few trail rides with the family every year, but I would like to handle a horse on my own and one that is not so tame as the trail horses.

Your idea of riding lesson is a good one. The more time you put in riding the more you learn. Horses and mules are very good to get into the back country with a good camp and supplies. Trail riding is also good as it is more riding. If you can, you might plan a vacation to a place that takes wilderness pack and camping trips. Lots around Dubois and Jackson and Cody Wy. You will see how they pack the animals and handle the animals in the rough country. Ask the wranglers if you can help pack up. You can see how they set up camp and what they use for cooking and supplies. A great experience. Then you can decide if you can do it on your own.

I can't really answer that as I grew up around horses and riding them in the back country.

While I do most all of my riding and leading pack strings in alone, I would highly suggest a guided hunt (or back country lessons as you have mentioned) with packers who know what they're doing. If you do this a few times and get more comfortable, then maybe look into doing a DIY trip.

You can get into trouble in a big hurry in the back country if you have a blow up. I carry a SPOT because of a couple close calls over the years. Breaking ribs 10-20 miles in sucks donkey balls. The ride out is even worse. Ask me how I know. If you broke a leg you'd be done for if no one knows exactly where you are.

Look at the rifle in the upper left hand part of the below pic. I am pretty sure it kept my leg from being broke. My horse stepped on a soft part of the trail about midnight in the middle of Chamberlain Basin, Idaho. The horse and I rolled over each other several times until I finally grabbed a huge rock and stopped myself. That was the incident that made me start carrying a SPOT.


Horses are a lot of fun for sure, but also a LOT of work. It is not as easy as just throwing a saddle on and going.

Riding lessons are good but you still need miles in the saddle to hone your skills and get a better understanding on why things are done the way they are done.

There are Elk hunts,

and there are Horsemen,

amateurs should not mix the two.

Find an outfitter that does backcountry rides during the summer and learn what to do. And, always carry a PLB of some kind when far in the back country. It will save your life.

Go to the main Forum index ,scroll down towards the bottom and look for Horses and ATV's. You will get more response there.

Horses and elk hunting go together,(although I prefer mules)

That being said, horses in elk camp increase your work load by two if not three times. However instead of being only able to hunt a 3-5 mile radius from your camp, you increase it to ten. With that, you can hunt that area three drainages over and not have to carry everything you need on your back. Then once you get an elk on the ground, you have a lot easier way to get 300 lbs of meat or so back to camp. You can hunt all day until you are exhausted, then all you need is enough strength to crawl back on the saddle and ride back to camp.

There are guys on this forum that regularly carry that meat on their backs. They are tough sons of guns and way tougher and probably younger than I.

However, just deciding you want to hunt with horses is a long ways off from doing it. Learning to ride is a tiny tiny part of it. There is rough country and then there is dangerously rough country. You have to know how to care for your horse in the back country, meet all its needs and put those needs above yours. A badly injured un-useable horse, ten miles from the trailhead and 2-3 feet of snow can mean your death. That isn't taking into account all the possible injuries you can sustain using the dumb critters. It's fact that it isn't if you will get injured, but when. Bad things happen and they happen fast. Even falling off ,or the horse falling on you and you break a leg ten miles back in is a bad situation fast. Myself I have been riding for 60 years and have had more than a few injuries.

Last year a mule I bred raised and trained , rode for 12 years spooked took off thru the timber. I figured I'd best get off before I hit the thick stuff. I got really banged up with a compression fracture in the spine, broken rib, bruised internal organs. All because I dropped one rein. It just about ended my hunting career.

If you think I am trying to scare you. You are darn right. I want you to be careful if you chose to go this way

However, this coming year, I have another better, smaller mule and I'm picking up a smaller pack mule that I have traded my big saddle mule for. So I'm still hooked on doing it as with all my physical maladies I have, without the equines I would have to quit hunting.

The very best thing you could do is to go with someone a few times that knows what is going on and teach you what you need to know. I have done that with a few younger fellows in the past. Now I just about need someone to take care of me.

Using horses and Mules for transport and packing in and out , on an Elk hunt is the way to go, it will be cheaper over the long run just to hire an Outfitter that dose that sort of thing. Keeping horses can be a pricey thing from what I understand about it. Taking riding lessons, and riding well that is always a good idea and thing to do.

Yep, renting them for about $450 a season is he way to go if you can put up with rental horses. If you don't have pasture, but can keep them on your place, you are talking in the $1500-$2000 a year realm and that doesn't cover tack, vet bills, horse trailers or a truck to pull it with.

For the cost of keeping two equines for a year( saddle and pack) and figuring you would only use them for hunting, you can pay and outfitter to take you on a horse pack elk hunt. AND you don't have to shovel road apples, throw hay or such for the other 50 weeks of the year.

Hah that made me laugh. Never heard it called road apples

AND just because a horse is gentle DOES NOT mean it will be a pleasure to hunt on or have around camp in the backcountry ....

The definition of a Rodeo,

a horse that you suddenly find out doesn't like the smell of blood.

The horse is first allway's No mater how thirsty or hungry you are , so are the animals tend to them first then..

Wife and I have horses. You'll need riding horses, packing horses and all the gear associated with. Thought about using my own but I work to hard already.

I'm in the middle ground between horses and backpacking an elk camp. I have llamas. I have to use my own legs, but the boys carry the load. I love horses but I don't have room for them now. Llamas are MUCH cheaper than horses and easier to handle and care for but you do have to use your own shoe leather.

As far as rental trail riding horses, my experience has been less than ideal. The one time I tried it, the horses knew the trails so well that no one could get them to change. They knew the route and there was no way that you could take them off of it without a rodeo.

Maybe I'm wrong, I think that term originated in Canada. Around here we refer to it as "Amish exhaust."

They also know their way back to the trail head and will head that way any chance they can get. With or without you on their back.

Several years back my brother had the idea we could trailer our own horses out to Montana or Idaho and go on a self-guided wilderness hunt. (The idea was, I'd trailer the horses out there, and he'd fly out and meet me.) As I recall, I may have used some strong language to tell him what I thought of that idea. We ended up going with an outfitter.

I have been hunting with Mules and horses since 1992. I love it. A good book to read is Horses Hitches and Rocky Trails by Joe Back. Steve Edwards outta Queen Valley Ranch in Arizona is in my opinion one of the best trainers for demonstrating how to control an animal on steep mountain trails. He has experience packing in and out of the Grand Canyon.

There is no doubt choosing to hunt with mules and horses; not expending my limited resources to guided hunts and more time off, I have gotten less trophy animals harvested. But I love my mules, like my horse, and value my Billy Cook A fork saddle far more than any rifle I own.

Like was stated before. Even if some one GAVE you a finished string of mountain ready equines.Once you tacked em up, housed em, got their winter supply of hay, got a truck and trailer and found a way to corral em for extended periods in the high country, you could have instead filled a big ass safe with Savage Model 99's.....maybe even model 70 winchesters.(all with leupolds) Just braying.

Thanks for the feedback. I have siblings with a good deal of horse experience and now that my daughter is taking regular lessons, I am thinking of doing the same. We take recreational trail rides a few times a year and I would like to get more experience with the idea of doing some back country riding. Maybe we will go out west and do some wilderness horse camping. Of course, we would get an outfitter that knows the areas and has experience doing it. I have heard about horse and mules being a good way to get up into the mountains to hunt and thus, I'd want to have more experience with equines to do that. Even then, I would not plan on doing it all myself. But I have to start somewhere and it could be a lot of fun too. I'm getting older and I don't pretend that I can haul everything on my back and hike up to 8 or 10,000 ft.