How long can you keep meat in the mountains?

[bbags]

Watching one of the recently posted Alaska sheep videos, the hunters dropped a sheep and still had 7 days left on their hunt. The video depicts them in T-shirts during the day and based on the healthy swarms of mosquitos harassing them, I presume it was not getting a good freeze at night.

From your experience, if meat is kept clean, dry, shaded, and in quality game bags, how long will meat keep if it isn't freezing at night?

 

[Bubblehide]

The there is an awesome article here on Rokslide, supported by scientific info.

 

[Laramie]

There are some good threads on here about this but the short answer is it really depends on the actual temperature and how well you are able to cool the meat in that first 24 hours. If you are able to get the meat cold during the first night after the kill, meat can be held quite a while.

 

[AlaskaMark]

First, meat won't keep in hot weather more than a couple days. Typically it cools off dramatically at night. In Alaska, even in hot weather, we still have ice cold mtn creeks and underlying permafrost once you get lower down. You can put the meat in heavy duty garbage bag and immerse it in water (don't let the water into the bag) to cool the meat or dig a shallow hole in tundra (this is best method) and put the meat in there and cover it back up. That method will cool and keep the meat cold.

 

[greywacke]

First, meat won't keep in hot weather more than a couple days. Typically it cools off dramatically at night. In Alaska, even in hot weather, we still have ice cold mtn creeks and underlying permafrost once you get lower down. You can put the meat in heavy duty garbage bag and immerse it in water (don't let the water into the bag) to cool the meat or dig a shallow hole in tundra (this is best method) and put the meat in there and cover it back up. That method will cool and keep the meat cold.

This, mostly. The Brooks Range in August gets cool without direct sunlight. And the mosquitoes hatch out of the snow to come get you, so a 3-hour frost doesn't even slow them down. [You can see mosquitoes in ANC in February if there's a thaw. The little bastards will fight their way up through 4' of bermed snow to catch you running in shorts at 36 degrees...]

At my fish camp, we have an aluminum box about the size of a mini fridge buried in the permafrost tundra on the side of a small hill for a refrigerator. It will just about keep ice cream if you keep the styrofoam cover over the unburied front door.

Meat on the bone will keep for about 3x as long as boned meat. Hardest part in Alaska is keeping meat dry, which plastic bags suck for. A drizzly day in a closed plastic bag will kill a carefully crafted pelicle. But so will the drizzle, even under a tarp
Sometimes it socks in and you can't get your plane to pick up your meat. That's when a thin layer of black pepper really shines for keeping the bugs and birds to a minimum. I'll dump a big can or two of dusty black pepper in my meat drybags, and shake the bag around to coat the meat in black pepper like I was breading fish. A liberal coat of black pepper cured in the pelicle is the easiest way I've found to deter flies and whiskey jacks drawn to the smell.

OP: Dropped a moose late on D1, quarters were all hung and mosquito-netted and teepeed under a tarp in camp by D4 [chose your partners wisely], rain commenced D5, and meat got boned and flown to a cooler space D11. Lost <20% of the meat, basically the neck pieces, some of the ribs, and the trim. Wasn't a backpack hunt though, and had some 4" black spruce and a machete to build a plastic tarp teepee that could support some weight.

 

[AK Troutbum]

I don’t think I’ve ever been on a mountain hunt up here and not had snow somewhere close by. Even in August, typically you don’t have to get too high in elevation to find patches of snow, be it sheltered and or shaded areas, or old avalanche shoots. In regards to the meat getting wet, obviously any water that can potentially contaminate the meat with bacteria is a no go, but I don’t think rain is necessarily a bad thing as long as it’s a cold rain (which is usually the case just about any time of the year up here). Several years ago I killed a goat in early Oct. on the second day of a 12 day hunt. I was hunting solo, and by the time I got everything packed back to the lake that I had been flown into, it was day 5. Before I was able to get an early flight out, a pretty major storm hit and I ended up spending the next week just trying to stay dry. Needless to say, the only thing I could do with the meat was put it up on top of boulders to keep it out of the water. The makeshift tarp I had put over the meat was shredded on the first night with winds gusting over 100mph. Long story short, the meat got wet and stayed wet the entire time I was there and I couldn’t do anything about it. I thought for sure that the meat was going to be ruined. Anyway, I got back home and processed it, and it turned out to be some of the best, if not the best, goat meat we’ve ever had. Conditions were cool for the entire hunt, sometimes hovering in high 30’s, and never much above 50°, so that definitely helped, but I thought for sure the meat was trashed with all that moisture.


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[leoni1]

I backpack sheep hunt in Alberta, and much of my hunting is late August, where daytime highs can be in the low 20s (celcius) and nights are often below freezing.

We have taken rams that have taken up to 4 days to get back to the truck. My process is to always debone and place in double-bagged extra large freezer bags and either sink the bags into a creek, or bury in snow.

Then in the morning I pack the freezer bags into the backpack, hike all day, then sink the bags into a creek wherever I camp that night. Despite warm daytime temps, I have always found the meat to still feel cool when I remove it from my backpack to place it in water at night.

Meat quality has always been excellent.


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[kaboku68]

Glaciers... They work. You take the boned out meat in the meat sacks and lightly salt the outside of the meat and put it in the glacier. It will freeze after 24 hours. Then you can treat it like frozen meat until you work your way out. Otherwise. You should be carrying some salt for the cape. make sure boned out meat is lightly salted and then spread it out at night on cold rocks and it chills it down too. Key thing is keep it dry.

 

[Vek]

12 days on (or more correctly, in) kaboku68's glacier. Lots of nooks and overhangs if you look around a bit.

 

[MR5X5]

Method I've used successfully in the lower 48..

1) Bone out the meat - no pieces larger than 1/2 a sirloin
2) In an area with clear views of the night sky. Build a stick mat with a stick platform on top. Were talking super simple 3-4 rows of crisscrossed sticks - enough to allow airflow underneath.
3) Build another such platform somewhere in the shade, cool by a creek, etc...
4) At night - need a clear sky - spread the meat out on the platform(s) such that they are not touching. In the morning the meat will be below 40F
5) In the morning, at the shady platform, wrap the meat in two super lightweight space blankets (Not one!), and place on the daytime platform. Literally the cheapest thinnest AL blankets you can find. At the end of the day the meat will still be cool to the touch.
6) Repeat daily

I have kept meat this way for up to 4 days in the lower 48 where daytime highs were 85+F and night time lows were in the 60s.

Just another trick up your sleeve. Good luck.