Taking your bed every day

[jeffy]

So i was pondering some things, going over weights for day packs and necessary items. Which got me to thinking. I have plans forming for emergency shelter during my trips out every day, just in case we end up on the critters and want to sleep there for a better shot in the morning, or have some success and work on cutting into the dark hours and sleep there, and of course the standard coverage for storms. So in this thinking, especially the overnight part, i wondered........

Should i pack my bedroll for my day trips? If i end up needing to stay away from "base camp" overnight i don't want to sleep on rocky ground with nothing but a tarp and my clothes. How many of you do this? Anything similar? This is an easy way to add 5lbs to the load that I'd be carrying all day every day, so is it just a matter of deciding on comfort now or comfort later?

Thanks

 

[fngTony]

To keep it light I would already have a puffy and tarp then add puff pants a 1 pound pad and the large s.o.l. emergency bivy. You could stuff a trash bag with debris instead of carrying a pad. Try to find natural shelter like a rock out cropping. A fire with a reflecting wall or build 3 fires in a triangle and sleep in the middle. Maybe a hammock, heat rocks with fire then roll them under your tarp hammock setup that way your fire won't melt anything.

 

[les welch]

Not me personally, no way. I hunt until dark every day, and I leave camp in the dark every day. It's actually funny at the end of the hunt to see what camp looks like in the daylight I hunt with a daypack. To carry around a bedroll, bag, all of that. No thanks.

 

[freebird134]

Not me personally, no way. I hunt until dark every day, and I leave camp in the dark every day. It's actually funny at the end of the hunt to see what camp looks like in the daylight I hunt with a daypack. To carry around a bedroll, bag, all of that. No thanks.

Same here. Besides the weight, getting up earlier and packing up, then having to unpack and each night, is just not worth it. But, I suppose if I hunted an area where I consistently found myself miles from camp each day, I'd change my mind.

 

[PathFinder]

Depending on the hunt, sometimes everything spends the whole hunt on my back. My sleep system only weighs 3.5 lbs, so the weight isn't bad. Setting up and taking it down sucks if I have to use my tarp. If the weather is clear then I just unpack my bed roll and blow up my pad.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[Hunt'nFish]

I guess I'm the exception, my Brother, Father & I have spend many a night during rifle elk season leaned up against a tree with nothing more than a small fire and a couple remaining power bars. Simply because we had scouted miles from base camp and found what we sought.

IMO, for times like these I'm quite happy with a little grub, a pint of something special, and my family to share it with.
Times when memories are made.

Not to say, a pad wouldn't have been appreciated...... just not needed.
Hunt'nFish

 

[jeffy]

So pretty much, don't be a sissy and leave it behind. I already have the puffy with me at all times and probably 2 base layers of merino. Hoping of i got cold just putting on everything would be warm enough. Obviously better in a bag. I like the emergency bivy idea, instead of bag, and had thought possibly pine boughs or other naturals for pad. Maybe just pull the tyvek every morning and utilize that as my tarp/meat drop while cutting if victory finds us.........

This place is great for testing ideas through the minds of those who have been there. Thanks again guys.

 

[Becca]

Our solution is to compromise and take enough bivy gear to make an unexpected night away from camp "less miserable". Going to carrying short thermarest pads (and the Trekker chair sleeves to turn them into chairs), a small tarp shelter and all puffy clothes, as well as some emergency food and the jetboil has been the solution. For later season trips or trips where we truly plan to bivy, a one or two person quilt comes along (you can get away with that when you are married to your hunting partner). Not as comfortable as the standard camp set up, but will allow you to get your torso off the ground and insulated enough to get at least a little sleep. Takes the stress out of hunting/killing something too late to get back to camp, since all the pressure is off. Have had hunting partners elect to stumble off the mountain in the dark and face a mandatory return trip in 10 hours (which could have been a far more dangerous choice), while we stayed relatively comfy and got a decent nights rest and packed things back the next day in the daylight.

Bivy stuff doesn't go into our packs every single day, but I would say we take it along more often than not...

Here's a video Luke put together about what's in our bivy stuff:

Bivy Gear on Vimeo

 

[mfolch]

I've watched this video with some envy over the years and now it leaves me wondering what kind of packs you and Luke use for bivouack hunting. Three nights (four days) of food, plus extra quilts, chairs, mats, and a tent--seems like it could all get rather heavy and awkward rather quickly. Do you simply compress it all it a big Kifaru pack or do you also bring extra packs specifically for the day and possible extended bivy hunts?

 

[paleraider]

This was my first year backcountry hunting and I was solo. If I was hunting near my camp and was comfortable with the terrain I would take my sleeping bag, tarp, trashbag, puffy jacket, emergency blanket, hat/gloves and a day and a half of food with me just to be safe. Otherwise I pretty much packed up everything and carried it with me all day. My fully loaded pack with food and water came to 37lbs. So it wasn't terrible but I wasn't chasing anything down real quick either.

Going forward I will probably use my day hunting setup more. But I am a big fan of being prepared for the worst and I hate being cold, so I will carry the bag/quilt with me daily.

 

[Becca]

I've watched this video with some envy over the years and now it leaves me wondering what kind of packs you and Luke use for bivouack hunting. Three nights (four days) of food, plus extra quilts, chairs, mats, and a tent--seems like it could all get rather heavy and awkward rather quickly. Do you simply compress it all it a big Kifaru pack or do you also bring extra packs specifically for the day and possible extended bivy hunts?

If I remember correctly, when this video was made I was using the KU5200 and Luke was running an original duplex frame with a Rondevous packbag. These days we both run EMR2 packbags on the new duplex frames. Never saw the point in using a pack that wasn't big enough to haul meat/hide and gear if necessary, so no day packs for us. Easy enough to suck up the extra packbag, but so handy to have the extra cubic inches once you get a critter down.

 

[the big Mao]

I'm never too far from timber, so I carry a Warbonnet Blackbird along with an underquilt and top quilt. the whole mess compresses into something about the size of a good mountaineering boot, weighs only about 3.5 pounds, and takes maaaaaybe 3 minutes to set up the hammock. The fly takes a little longer but the whole mess is easily put into a day pack. No pad necessary, and I sleep as well in that as I do in my bed at home. the problem comes the next morning....I really don't wanna get out of bed

 

[dog812]

I do half backpacking and half wall tent hunting. But either way I am always putting on miles.
I almost always carry a Jimmy tarps bivy sack and silnylon tarp. I use the tarp for shelter while glassing, or as a poncho in the rain and the bivy is just in case I need to spend a night out. The bivy has some r value to it. Together they weigh less then a pound. And make it easy less miserable when Shit hits the fan