Great info on bone-in weights, and great photos Bambi!
I generally hunt with 1 hunt partner, and we typically don’t shoot 2 animals at once. So, we usually each take a bone-in hindquarter and a bone-in front quarter on the first load, along with all of the gear already in our pack (spotting scope, rain gear, bivy sack, food, water, etc). If the trek back to the ridgetop (or wherever the plane will come to pick up the animal) is more than ½ mile, we usually do shuttle runs – take the first load ¼ mile back toward camp, drop it and go back for the 2nd load, etc. Gives our legs and backs a break – I turned 58 this year, so I try to work smart and understand I can’t do the things I did at 40 (or can’t do them as easily). Some of my caribou packs below –
The first photo is from 2010 – shot this one about ½ mile below camp, so not a tough pack as the ground was pretty solid.
The next photo is from 2014 – shot this one about 2 miles from the ridgetop where the plane would pick it up. This pack had it all – about ¼ mile of swampy ground, about ¼ mile of alders, a creek crossing, and about ½ mile climb up the ridge at the end of the pack. We were tired when we got this pack finished.
The last photo is from 2017. This one was also about 2 miles from the camp, but I shot him at the same approximate elevation as camp, and in relatively open ground – so it was 2 miles and 2 loads, but without the swampy ground, alders, creek crossings, and ½ mile climb at the end. Then again, I was 3 years older than in 2014, so we were still tired.
I generally hunt with 1 hunt partner, and we typically don’t shoot 2 animals at once. So, we usually each take a bone-in hindquarter and a bone-in front quarter on the first load, along with all of the gear already in our pack (spotting scope, rain gear, bivy sack, food, water, etc). If the trek back to the ridgetop (or wherever the plane will come to pick up the animal) is more than ½ mile, we usually do shuttle runs – take the first load ¼ mile back toward camp, drop it and go back for the 2nd load, etc. Gives our legs and backs a break – I turned 58 this year, so I try to work smart and understand I can’t do the things I did at 40 (or can’t do them as easily). Some of my caribou packs below –
The first photo is from 2010 – shot this one about ½ mile below camp, so not a tough pack as the ground was pretty solid.
The next photo is from 2014 – shot this one about 2 miles from the ridgetop where the plane would pick it up. This pack had it all – about ¼ mile of swampy ground, about ¼ mile of alders, a creek crossing, and about ½ mile climb up the ridge at the end of the pack. We were tired when we got this pack finished.
The last photo is from 2017. This one was also about 2 miles from the camp, but I shot him at the same approximate elevation as camp, and in relatively open ground – so it was 2 miles and 2 loads, but without the swampy ground, alders, creek crossings, and ½ mile climb at the end. Then again, I was 3 years older than in 2014, so we were still tired.
