doug in co wrote:
otherwise my plan for solo endurance journey was for a 5 day elk hunt (in
my case armed hiking) in the White River NF. In previous years attempted to backpack in and hunt, but this doesn't work, because the elk are either not in the area, or move far and fast away from disturbances like that. So it will be a series of trail runs carrying a rifle, 10-15 miles each day, plus offtrail bushwhacking into spots that look good on the satellite pics. Used to do this sort of thing in the Army, but this is better, as the elk don't shoot back.
Remains to be seen if I have the heart for it..
logistics are sleep in back of the truck, use trail run gear to carry emergency kit and day food, giant frame backpack in the truck for packing out in case my luck shows up. 4am start to be in place before shooting hours, so the first 5-6miles in the dark with headlamp. Stay to last light, so the last miles ditto. Eat, sleep. Repeat until the season ends.
got in 3 days only, even that took me to the limits of my endurance.. which is a short distance, these days. The
scouting trip got me worried as a backpack route I thought of as moderate, turned into a survival plod while favoring the bad knee. Hoped that was just an aberration, and blindly plunged like fate into the lone backcountry.
Drove in through a good winter storm on the passes, Loveland and Vail. Plan was to hike in before dark, but slow going traffic and snow meant arrival at the trailhead in last light. Slept in the truck, a 4-ft bed which gets to 6ft with the tailgate down. Only an inch of toes hanging off the edge, then.
The zero-degree sleeping bag kept me warm while the outer nylon frosted into an icy shell by 3:30am. Up and hit the trail in moonlight and 3-4" of snow, 30lb backpack plus 8lb of rifle. This went OK for a mile or two and 1500ft up, then Windy Gap nearly blew me over. After this is a short section of ledge trail with a good long plummet off the trail.
In daylight on the way back,
now imagine that at 4am with snow, blowing snow, stiff winds, 2ft of snow over no perceptible trail with no visibility but a strong sense of vasty deeps in the windy dark.
Chickened out (prudence is the name I'd prefer), crawled back into the woods for shelter and waited for daylight. Finally got to use that survival bivy sack I've been carrying for decades. By daylight another hunter had gone up and left footsteps.
Further along there were fresh elk tracks. This was most likely a solitary bull as the cows herd up for winter. Dropped the pack and followed these for an hour, then met my own footprints coming back around a tangle of deadfall. The elk like a manoeuvre termed the j-hook, will circle back on their own tracks to check for followers. Clearly I'm not as smart as the average elk. Still don't know where he went after the hook, maybe was lying doggo in the deadfall.
Back through the pathless woods to the trail which disappeared again under blown snow at the ridge. Picked a drainage to follow which I believed would intersect the trail lower and luckily was right. I've done that before only to end up on a cliff with fine views but no way forward. Dropped the pack in camp spot and ran around the woods looking for signs of elk life. Plenty of old sign, no fresh tracks, no bedding areas, not much of anything. I'd have hiked back out if physically capable of it. Good country though.
Spent the night in perfect silence with Mars glowing redly in the east, moving overhead as we turned toward dawn. Up at 5am to hike up a ridge and look for beasts in the early light. There was more deadfall navigation to the hilltop. Nothing to be seen except another two hunters vivid in their hunting orange. Later there were two shots, booming into the silence of late fall in this high country. Walked the dark woods along the ridges and past potential bedding areas identified from topo maps and satellite pictures, nobody home. Scrambled up another peak in the evening to look around, country all quiet and still.
Out again in the morning, three and a half hours to do five miles and 2000 feet of elevation change. There was a day left in the season, but I had no plans for hunting from the road. My strategy had always been to be fitter and stronger than the other guys, move fast and cover ground in the back country. I hadn't realized just how old I'd grown. Gave up and went home, fished a bit at a lake on the way home, a good trout red as a salmon, kept for dinner.