Backpack Elk Hunt: Where to Shave Weight?

[AT Hiker]

Awesome write up and thanks for sharing!

I thought I was insane and crazy when it comes to pushing myself...looks like there are more and more of us morons who take it to the next level to have the adventure of our dreams!

I have always been told elk retreat to the nasty stuff, not always far far away...just somewhere most hunters would not consider packing anything out. A couple places I mule deer hunt in WY are this way, only surrounding landowners have the easy access...other than that hiking in is the only way (horses could not navigate either).

Question; did you use the CO G&F website to help in planning your hunt, specifically the area you chose? CO OTC elk hunting is likely my next addiction that I am about to start. Part of my planning philosophy is going to be looking for areas with high elk numbers and moderate public land access, harvest ratios are not to important to me because archery is such a low ratio I think they are irrelevant (rifle is another story of course). I basically want an adventure with a realistic chance to get into elk; cow, bull, spike...whatever is legal. For OTC hunts the "trophy" is about the least important thing to me.

 

[infoman jr.]

Yeah, horses are a common way to do it though, you definitely want to be very familiar with horses before attempting to use them in the mountains. Bringing your own from the East would be expensive and a lot to deal with. Renting horses is expensive and you have to tend to them daily. Using an outfitter is another common way. They'll pack you into a camp by horse then come back for you in a week. Those types of outfits generally start about $3,000 per person and go up. I did my entire hunt for about $900 (fuel + tag).

These guys use an outfitter who owns the horses. They call down with a sat phone if they kill one, and the outfitter brings up the horses, pack the meat out, and have it packaged by the processor by the time they are off the mountain. Their fee is $1600 for 10 days. Pretty reasonable.

$1600 total for the service or $1600 per person?

That's per person.

 

[ghosthunter]

Hey Poser how did you like using the sawyer water filter?

 

[ghosthunter]

How would they fill their bladders? Just dunk them under water? A lot of the water sources I used were shallow streams making it a pain to dunk a bladder under and get full. I'm open to ideas. That would shave a good bit off my weight if I could ditch the pump.