Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance. Today,
Speaker 1: we're gonna jump into a topic that we don't hit
Speaker 1: on a lot, but we do backpack hunt, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna go through the decisions like when it makes sense
Speaker 1: to backpack hunt versus when maybe it makes sense to
Speaker 1: just day hunt it or hunt from a base camp.
Speaker 1: I'm joined today by my co host Dirk Durham. Appreciate
Speaker 1: having him on. And what you're pretty much getting today
Speaker 1: is two of the best backpack hunters to ever do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna uh no, all getting aside. We
Speaker 1: do enjoy a backpack hunt, but there are times where
Speaker 1: you need to you need to make the you know,
Speaker 1: there should be a decision tree made. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not that complex, but it's like do I need to
Speaker 1: go ten miles in or am I going to start
Speaker 1: to hit horse camps? Or am I you know when
Speaker 1: when does it make sense? And we'll try to break
Speaker 1: that down for you in my simple term, or you
Speaker 1: know is like if there are elk that are in
Speaker 1: an area or lots of elk, or elk I want
Speaker 1: to kill and I really don't want to walk in
Speaker 1: there every morning and walk out every night because it's
Speaker 1: a long or it's physically arduous and I don't want
Speaker 1: to deal with that. Then that's kind of that's my
Speaker 1: very easy decision. But talking with Dirk, we'll jump into
Speaker 1: all of that and uh and they give you, you know,
Speaker 1: our best information as far as gear strategy, tactics, some
Speaker 1: of the other things you need to think about that
Speaker 1: you don't maybe have to think about. And if you're
Speaker 1: on the fence, you're new to backpack hunting kind of
Speaker 1: what what you may need to think about as you
Speaker 1: do that. So welcome to the show, Dirk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me on again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's nice to catch up. Even though we
Speaker 1: run our own shows and we were we were just uh,
Speaker 1: I don't even you can't call it cougar camp if
Speaker 1: you uh, our wives may question what we were doing
Speaker 1: hunting at cougar camp, but we were just at.
Speaker 2: A couple weeks ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we did get to hang out there for
Speaker 1: a little bit. But it's always nice to to jump
Speaker 1: back on the podcast with you and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: just talk about hunting. So yeah, today, once again we're
Speaker 1: gonna touch on backpack hunting, you know, gear. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: is the real differentiator between your normal hunting and backpack hunting.
Speaker 1: But then there are some things like strategy. You know,
Speaker 1: is there different strategies when you're backpack hunting versus you know,
Speaker 1: meat care, physical requirements, you know, some of these other
Speaker 1: things that come into play gear requirements, you know, taking
Speaker 1: care of your gear, all that stuff we're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna try to touch on the day. But just like
Speaker 1: every episode of Cutting the Distance, we're gonna start off
Speaker 1: with a few questions that we get asked routinely, and
Speaker 1: we had to dig pretty deep because we're not, like
Speaker 1: I said, we're we don't promote backpack hunting like some
Speaker 1: of the the groups out there, but we do. It
Speaker 1: is part of our strategy. I always look to try
Speaker 1: to backpack hunt, you know, once a year, if not more.
Speaker 1: And Dirk, you know, we've had some trips to Colorado
Speaker 1: where we lived off of our back We never stayed
Speaker 1: at the base camp once and so we're we're experienced,
Speaker 1: we've got the gear, and so we're gonna touch on
Speaker 1: that today. But we're gonn jump into three questions that
Speaker 1: we took from you know, the listeners, and if you
Speaker 1: have questions of your own. Feel free to email them
Speaker 1: to us at ct D at phelpsgame Calls dot Com,
Speaker 1: or send us a social message, a message on social media,
Speaker 1: and we'll do our best to get them on here
Speaker 1: for for me and for us and our guests. So, Dirk,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna throw this one to you first. When do
Speaker 1: you decide when to backpack hunt? And I guess you
Speaker 1: can take it a couple different ways, But I think
Speaker 1: what we're what we're getting at, or what people really
Speaker 1: want to know, is when you decide whether that's going
Speaker 1: to be a day hunt or whether this unit or
Speaker 1: area really needs backpack hunting to be successful.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot of things I kind of factor in.
Speaker 2: So if I'm looking at the area, can I hunt
Speaker 2: it effectively buy backpack hunting in for a few days,
Speaker 2: or am I better off to do day trips? So
Speaker 2: depending on the road systems, depending on the animals, depending
Speaker 2: on the kind of trails and and the type of
Speaker 2: the foliage and stuff in the train. For instance, like
Speaker 2: North Idaho, it just doesn't make sense to backpack hunt.
Speaker 2: There's some brush on brush on brush, The trails are terrible,
Speaker 2: They're not well maintained by the Force Service so it's
Speaker 2: just going to be a suckfest packing, you know, your
Speaker 2: backpack full of all your gear, you know, for several
Speaker 2: miles and for several days back in those areas to
Speaker 2: only find that there may or may not be elk
Speaker 2: in those areas. So those kind of places I like
Speaker 2: to stay nimble. I like to day hunt. Now, Let's
Speaker 2: say I walked on a great trail and I got
Speaker 2: way way way back and there was there were elk
Speaker 2: everywhere and where in an area that was big enough
Speaker 2: to that I wouldn't hunt it out in like one
Speaker 2: single day. I would definitely like on my way out,
Speaker 2: I would be planning on, Okay, where am I going
Speaker 2: to stay. I'm going to get back to the truck.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have my other pack. I always take two
Speaker 2: packs with me when I go to elk camp. I
Speaker 2: take I'm fortunate enough to have two packs. I have
Speaker 2: one that's a day pack, and then I have one
Speaker 2: that's already set up ready to go. All I have
Speaker 2: to do is like put my put it on my
Speaker 2: back and go And it's got all my my bivy
Speaker 2: hunting stuff in it, so that way I just I
Speaker 2: can go back the next morning get up early, hit
Speaker 2: the trail early, early early, get back in there and
Speaker 2: then hunt and then you know, maybe once I get
Speaker 2: back there, it may maybe it makes sense to have
Speaker 2: like a little spike camp. Maybe it makes sense to
Speaker 2: have all my gear with me all the time and
Speaker 2: just hunt until it's dark and then and then build
Speaker 2: camp and then just continue kind of kind of a
Speaker 2: bivvy type hunt. But those are the kind of things
Speaker 2: I'm really going to consider. And then also water, like
Speaker 2: does the area have a lot of water? Is water
Speaker 2: read readily available? Some areas, you know, you may have
Speaker 2: to drop a thousand feet just to get any kind
Speaker 2: of water. Maybe you're in some really high, high dry,
Speaker 2: dry mountains you have to drop a thousand feet or
Speaker 2: two thousand feet to get water. I'm I'm not really
Speaker 2: interested in doing that too much, but maybe the hunt
Speaker 2: will take you down to the water, and you know,
Speaker 2: maybe that does make sense. So I factor a few
Speaker 2: things in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of those same things. You know, I
Speaker 1: echo the same same ideas what I You know, we
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time pre scouting. You know you're
Speaker 1: going to maybe a new unit, you know, you'd kind
Speaker 1: of reference an area you're familiar with if I'm going
Speaker 1: to a new spot, you know, use how roaded is
Speaker 1: the area? Can I access? How much of the unit
Speaker 1: can I access? If you're if you're in let's say
Speaker 1: a unit that has two or three roads, and that's it.
Speaker 1: It almost turns itself into a backpack hunt and you know,
Speaker 1: on its own. But if if there's a bunch of roads,
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily make sense to to, you know, backpack
Speaker 1: in when you can hit most of everything or the
Speaker 1: stuff that you really want to get to on a
Speaker 1: day hunt and maybe not burn too much energy. Now,
Speaker 1: there are spots that might be a mile in that
Speaker 1: I want to backpack hunt because I don't want to,
Speaker 1: you know, if it's a mile in, but two thousand
Speaker 1: feet up or three thousand feet up extremely steep to
Speaker 1: get up into an area, I'm not interested in doing
Speaker 1: that every morning and every night. But yet, if there
Speaker 1: are animals there, I want to stay. So we usually
Speaker 1: find a lot of these backpack hunt areas on a
Speaker 1: day trip. You know you're in there hunting your your
Speaker 1: daily hunt. You know you're following sign, you're trying to
Speaker 1: get on a ridge, you're working your tail off. It's
Speaker 1: meant to be a day hunt, you're like, oh, this
Speaker 1: place is good, like it deserves more time, or there's
Speaker 1: enough there's enough area in here that I can stay
Speaker 1: and hunt it for a couple of days and not
Speaker 1: necessarily screw it all up or blow it out, or
Speaker 1: I can be patient, and so then we'll like, all right,
Speaker 1: we're going to load up, you know, food and all
Speaker 1: of our backpacking gear, and you know, come back in
Speaker 1: here and if the animals like everybody one thing. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's a myth is that you don't just you don't
Speaker 1: just walk. You know, there's not more elk at ten miles,
Speaker 1: and then there is a five miles, and there's not
Speaker 1: more elk at five miles, and there three miles. I
Speaker 1: think there's a little bit of a myth that you
Speaker 1: just the farther you hike and the farther you get
Speaker 1: into these areas that just don't have as many people,
Speaker 1: or maybe you're as easy to get to, doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: have more animals. Sometimes your hike in keeps taking you
Speaker 1: up in elevation, and if it's a hot summer, guess what,
Speaker 1: you get to a point where all the food's burnt up.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't make any sense to keep hiking and
Speaker 1: you might as well not backpack any farther. In twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: I believe Idaho was extremely hot. We showed up to
Speaker 1: a new unit. I did all this, you know, Google
Speaker 1: Earth Scouting showed up number one. All the food was
Speaker 1: burnt up. At number two. They had been running sheep
Speaker 1: in the area for the last it seemed like year,
Speaker 1: but it was probably months, and every bit of food
Speaker 1: was ate up and they elk need food to survive,
Speaker 1: and they had bounced out of there and went back
Speaker 1: to a lower spot where there was green, lush food.
Speaker 1: And so there are times there where it's like just
Speaker 1: the just the nature of the food turned that thing
Speaker 1: into a non backpack hunt. You know, the water wasn't there,
Speaker 1: and so we had to actually go down in elevation
Speaker 1: from a lot of the road systems, and up was
Speaker 1: the wrong, wrong answers. So you just I don't want
Speaker 1: to make oversimplified or make it sound too easy, but
Speaker 1: you just have to be a smart hunter. If the
Speaker 1: backpack hunt leads, If I believe the backpack hunt will
Speaker 1: lead the more success than doing it from the road,
Speaker 1: then then that's when I decide I let my success
Speaker 1: and what I think is going to give me the
Speaker 1: best option, kind of dictate it. There may be areas
Speaker 1: where you may want a backpack hunt because there's there's
Speaker 1: may maybe there is a bigger critter in there that
Speaker 1: never gets her ass, but there may be less you
Speaker 1: know there there's all these different reasons. So whatever your
Speaker 1: goal is, but that's that's what I base my decision on.
Speaker 1: If I can find success or more success on a
Speaker 1: backpack hunt, or a higher chance of success than a
Speaker 1: day hunt, I'll make that decision.
Speaker 2: One thing too, is I talk to a lot of
Speaker 2: people who let's say, for instance, they go to Colorado
Speaker 2: and they said, yeah, we're going to do this seven
Speaker 2: day backpack trip. You know, you know, we have ten
Speaker 2: days away from home, we have drive time, YadA, YadA, YadA,
Speaker 2: but we have seven days to be hunt, you know,
Speaker 2: boot to have boots on the ground. So they'll go
Speaker 2: to a trailhead in Colorado and then they'll backpack in
Speaker 2: and they'll be in there for seven days, and they'll
Speaker 2: say a lot of them say the same thing, Yeah man,
Speaker 2: we got there and either there were no elk where
Speaker 2: they were at or there was a fresh sign and
Speaker 2: they thought, oh yeah, they'll those elk will be around
Speaker 2: here somewhere, and they never turn them up, or they
Speaker 2: see elk in the beginning, and then as time goes by,
Speaker 2: there's less elk, less elk, less elk in that particular spot.
Speaker 2: And then but day three, there's no elk in there
Speaker 2: because maybe they've encroached too much with their you know,
Speaker 2: their scent and stuff and spooked them out.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, they put all their eggs eggs in there,
Speaker 1: one and in one basket.
Speaker 2: One basket. And I'm I'm the kind of person I
Speaker 2: want proof, want I want a little bit of proof
Speaker 2: before I kind of like just jump right in that
Speaker 2: there's going to be some elk there or there's gonna
Speaker 2: be lots of planned bees. Let's say I hikeway back in,
Speaker 2: but it's big enough, broken enough country to where I'm
Speaker 2: not going to hunt it out or blow it out
Speaker 2: in the first three days, unless you know, if I
Speaker 2: wanted to stay seven days, but I'm not going to
Speaker 2: probably stay that long. But I know, like, for instance,
Speaker 2: you know, Wyoming, in the past, I've hunted, We've had
Speaker 2: some long day trips like fourteen mile days, seventeen mile days,
Speaker 2: and those suck. I mean, it was awesome because we
Speaker 2: were in bulls, but it's man, it's a grind. I mean,
Speaker 2: you're walking for two hours in the morning in the
Speaker 2: dark and two hours at night in the dark, and
Speaker 2: in those kind of situations, I thought to myself, Man,
Speaker 2: it would be super smart to be to have a
Speaker 2: base camp out here, like four miles from the truck,
Speaker 2: you know, and then we're not walking nearly so far
Speaker 2: every morning every night. That would have been a perfect
Speaker 2: scenario where we definitely should have backpack hunted it. We'd
Speaker 2: had more energy every day.
Speaker 1: But I mean, as long as you made it to
Speaker 1: the grizzly bear attacks, you'd have been.
Speaker 2: Funny, right That area wasn't known for grizzlies at the time,
Speaker 2: but they say, you know, the population is growing and
Speaker 2: they're starting to pop up in new places in Montana
Speaker 2: and Wyoming Go.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, we'll get into more maybe on the
Speaker 1: strategy side, like is Dirk was mentioned like these long days.
Speaker 1: I like to pick camps that give me maybe three
Speaker 1: days worth of hunting if I go out this ridge.
Speaker 1: And so we'll talk a little bit more about when
Speaker 1: you come to spike camp, you know, setting up camp
Speaker 1: so that you don't get winded and all of that
Speaker 1: stuff here in a little bit, how many days do
Speaker 1: you like to plan your backpack hunt from? And it's
Speaker 1: maybe stems off of what I was just talking about
Speaker 1: a little bit is is maybe I answered you my
Speaker 1: own question before it. But Dirk, how many days do
Speaker 1: you plan your backpack hunts for it? Whether you're going
Speaker 1: to go for two or three or five? And we
Speaker 1: do this all the time, like, hey, we're just gonna
Speaker 1: stay a one night or we're gonna stay for three
Speaker 1: year five, And how do you decide that?
Speaker 2: It's hard sometimes that to know how many days you
Speaker 2: should go. I felt, I feel like a three day
Speaker 2: plan has worked really well in the past for me.
Speaker 2: I know what, when we went hunted with in Montana
Speaker 2: with Giannis, that kind of bid us a little bit
Speaker 2: on that hunt, only packing enough food for three days.
Speaker 2: But but yeah, typically a three day hunt, you'll kind
Speaker 2: of know, you know, maybe you'll either kill or you
Speaker 2: will you'll be like, let's get out of here. So
Speaker 2: that's typically three to five.
Speaker 1: Days, yep. And And it a lot of it depends
Speaker 1: if you know. And when I say you know, like
Speaker 1: maybe you've glassed into an area that's way in there,
Speaker 1: and you know there's there's maybe more elk, or there's
Speaker 1: multiple drainages out of there, or if the efforts really
Speaker 1: really high, like I tend to want to stay longer
Speaker 1: if the work I got to put in to get
Speaker 1: there is higher, you know, So if I've got to
Speaker 1: walk in seven seven miles and climb three thousand feet,
Speaker 1: You're like, you know what, I might stay in here
Speaker 1: an extra day or two because or at least plan
Speaker 1: for And this is one thing people maybe get wrong,
Speaker 1: like if you if you're food and we're gonna get
Speaker 1: into all this in more detail later, but let's say
Speaker 1: you got two pounds per day. It's like you can
Speaker 1: always throw in food for five, but plan for three.
Speaker 1: You know, It's like, we don't ever do that, But
Speaker 1: all right, what's the extra four pounds on the on
Speaker 1: the grand scheme of it. Worst case now you walk
Speaker 1: out with it and you eat it the next two days.
Speaker 1: So we've got to the point now where I maybe
Speaker 1: maybe throw X amount of days worth of food in
Speaker 1: that I think I'm gonna be there maybe one more
Speaker 1: and then maybe some extra snacks. So if I really
Speaker 1: had to stretch it, you know, to I can I
Speaker 1: can stay in there, but it really just depends on
Speaker 1: how far you're going. And to twist the question a
Speaker 1: little bit, what I think a lot of people get
Speaker 1: wrong is, and it comes back to the eggs in
Speaker 1: one basket, is because you said you're going in there
Speaker 1: for three days, and you get in there on day
Speaker 1: one and explore it. You hike in, maybe it takes
Speaker 1: you three or four hours, and there is it is
Speaker 1: a dead zone. You don't hear Google the whole time
Speaker 1: in you don't see tracks, don't be committed because your
Speaker 1: pack has two extra days with food in it, Like,
Speaker 1: get the heck out of there and go somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like there's a level of like a
Speaker 2: stigma or maybe even a like unnecessary pressure we put
Speaker 2: on ourselves, Like you know, I planned to be in
Speaker 2: there six six days or seven days or three days,
Speaker 2: and I got in there in the first day and
Speaker 2: I gave up because it sucked. There's no hunting, there
Speaker 2: was no no nothing to no animals. Right. I almost
Speaker 2: feel like there could be a little bit of like
Speaker 2: stigma like you kind of put on yourself and be like, Eh,
Speaker 2: that's I just failed. That's not a failure. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: now you understand that the area better and no failing
Speaker 2: would be staying there for seven days or three days
Speaker 2: and continue to hunt an area that has no animals
Speaker 2: in it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I it's just as valuable. I mean not
Speaker 1: just as valuable. Don't that's what was going to be wrong,
Speaker 1: But it's it can be valuable to put big x's
Speaker 1: on chunks of a unit. You know, ideally it's better
Speaker 1: to find out, but it's sometimes just as good to
Speaker 1: find areas where there aren't alks, so you don't waste
Speaker 1: your next you know, the available time that you do
Speaker 1: have to hunt in an area that's just not going
Speaker 1: to pan out yep, and then the last thing you
Speaker 1: know it come. I use this as my determination on
Speaker 1: whether I'm going to backpack hunt. But do you find
Speaker 1: more success on backpack hunts compared to base camp or
Speaker 1: day day type hunts?
Speaker 2: No? I find more success day hunting just because I
Speaker 2: can I can stay in animals. Like like you say,
Speaker 2: you're you're you're marking a lot off a lot of xes.
Speaker 2: It seems like I depend on the area, there may
Speaker 2: be a lot of x is to mark off, and
Speaker 2: by having that day trip, I marking them off quickly,
Speaker 2: efficiently and knowing where I don't want to go, and
Speaker 2: and maybe I'm relocating, you know, several miles away instead
Speaker 2: of the next drainage over depend on the area. But
Speaker 2: but I seem to find a lot more success doing that.
Speaker 2: But I seem to tend to do more day hunting
Speaker 2: than I do backpack hunting. Yea, I think if like
Speaker 2: this fall, I'm going out elk hunting with Cody Wilson,
Speaker 2: it's going to be a backpack hunt. You know, just
Speaker 2: the true nature of the area. It's going to backpack.
Speaker 2: I mean, we could day trip it, but there's going
Speaker 2: to be a lot of people, and I think those
Speaker 2: people are probably going to be day tripping day tripping
Speaker 2: it too, So we're gonna have to dig in and
Speaker 2: and and and spend multiple days in a backpack hunt situation.
Speaker 2: But but I think it'll be good. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: it's there's a lot of animals there and it should
Speaker 2: be good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I got to think, and you know, the
Speaker 1: few when we were truly spiked out where there's like
Speaker 1: meet and you know, your your backpack camp, you know,
Speaker 1: you end up daisy chaining everything off your pack because
Speaker 1: you're trying to get the last load of meat in
Speaker 1: your camp. You know, we've had a few of those,
Speaker 1: but I would I find more success on areas that
Speaker 1: could have been backpacked hunt, but we went in there
Speaker 1: and found success, like on the long day hunt portion
Speaker 1: of it, Like you could have easily come back in
Speaker 1: and stayed in that area, but typically, like our long packs,
Speaker 1: you know, we might be three to five miles, but
Speaker 1: we were day hunting it when we found success. And
Speaker 1: you know, like even our New Mexico bowls in nineteen,
Speaker 1: like we could have been spiked out in that area,
Speaker 1: but we're it's a three mile hike and it's not
Speaker 1: real steep in New Mexico, right, So that was another
Speaker 1: thing like, yeah, it might be two or three miles,
Speaker 1: but we can hike in here every day and probably not
Speaker 1: blow the place out if we were to set up
Speaker 1: a stinky camp in here somewhere. You know, my big
Speaker 1: bowl was, you know, are three mile hike in You
Speaker 1: could easily you know, kept the fifteen hundred foot climb
Speaker 1: on it, but we we were only there for a
Speaker 1: couple of days and it's just how it worked out.
Speaker 1: So I really think that the success for me is
Speaker 1: fairly flat. Like if I decided to go backpack hunting,
Speaker 1: then then you're kind of in that same realm of
Speaker 1: whether your base camp or day hunting. It's kind of
Speaker 1: it's kind of flat for me, and it's once again,
Speaker 1: it just comes back to whether I think, you know,
Speaker 1: putting my tent and my sleeping bag and my you know,
Speaker 1: jet boil or ms R or whatever I'm using. If
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna put if it's worth putting that in
Speaker 1: my in my pack and uh going, then then I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be able to to find very very similar success,
Speaker 1: uh you know, whether I'm backpack hunting or whether I'm
Speaker 1: I'm day hunting. So yeah, that kind of wraps up
Speaker 1: the Q and a section of of the podcast. Once again,
Speaker 1: if you have a question you'd like me or my
Speaker 1: guests or Dirk and his guest to answer, feel free
Speaker 1: to email them to us at ct D at Phelps
Speaker 1: game Calls dot com, or send us a message on
Speaker 1: social media and we'll do our best to to to
Speaker 1: kind of get them on here. So now we're gonna
Speaker 1: jump into more of our discussion we wanted to have
Speaker 1: of just what do you need if you're you're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out, you know, your first backpack hunt or
Speaker 1: interests you or you you want to try it, what
Speaker 1: do you what do you need? And so I always
Speaker 1: look at the hunt very similar to regular hunting, but
Speaker 1: there is some specialized gear right where we're gonna need
Speaker 1: and going through that list, We're gonna have a pack,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have a shelter that needs to be added,
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to have a sleep system that's added.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to do something a little bit special
Speaker 1: with your food and cooking, and then water, in my
Speaker 1: opinion or really what differentiate you know, or water treatment
Speaker 1: is what's going to be different than than normal. So
Speaker 1: let's go through kind of what your pack setup is
Speaker 1: and what you prefer to have ready for a backpack hunt.
Speaker 2: So I feel like people kind of get caught up
Speaker 2: on all the stuff they want to have in their
Speaker 2: their pack, and and when once you kind of boil
Speaker 2: it down and you've been backpack hunting a few times,
Speaker 2: you realize there's a bunch of stuff you could throw
Speaker 2: in there that you just don't use. So I was
Speaker 2: trying to like, let's let's just keep this pretty simple.
Speaker 2: You to have your food, you're you have to have
Speaker 2: clean water, you have to have a sleep system. All
Speaker 2: the other stuff in your pack is going to be
Speaker 2: the same stuff you have in your normal day pack,
Speaker 2: you know. So, so you can spend as much money
Speaker 2: as you want on sleeping bags and and pads and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, and then like a shelter. But it's
Speaker 2: it's it's it's hard to find like a balance. It's
Speaker 2: like affordability and versus like weight. You can add a
Speaker 2: lot of weight by putting a sleeping bag in there.
Speaker 2: So I think my sleeping bag is under five pounds.
Speaker 2: I think it's like three or something. My sleeping pad
Speaker 2: is around three somewhere in there. And one thing is
Speaker 2: I I will I'll sacrifice some weight, like I'll buy
Speaker 2: a heavier sleeping pad, definitely, because I'm a I have
Speaker 2: a hard time sleeping on the ground in the back country.
Speaker 2: For whatever reason. I just I can't turn my mind off.
Speaker 2: I'll be exhausted at the end of the day, but
Speaker 2: I can't turn my mind off. So I'm laying there
Speaker 2: solving calculous equations and bird building birdhouses in my brain
Speaker 2: when I should be sleeping. I know, when we've shared
Speaker 2: a tent, like you'll be over there sleeping snoring. Well
Speaker 2: not yeah, you snore a little bit, a little bit.
Speaker 1: Not at all. Could buy it, Yeah, I must. I'm
Speaker 1: speaking about backpacking way. I'm gonna figure out some way
Speaker 1: to like power up your little uh, your little snoring
Speaker 1: machine and packed out sucker around with me.
Speaker 2: We may just have to get separate tents and like
Speaker 2: stay across the meadows from each other. But but I
Speaker 2: have I struggle, and I've I've spent a lot of money,
Speaker 2: and my my, my sleeping pad's not delight us by
Speaker 2: any means. I think we use the same one and
Speaker 2: the same type. That is, we don't share one. That's
Speaker 2: a different kind.
Speaker 1: Of Clear that up, Clear that up, please.
Speaker 2: But anyhow, so, you know, those are some of the
Speaker 2: things that you know, I'll spend a little bit more
Speaker 2: money and and and a little more weight on. It's
Speaker 2: like a sek a really good sleeping pad. There's lots
Speaker 2: of different options for getting pure water, clean water. I've
Speaker 2: been using that stereopin, stereypin. You'll have to make damn
Speaker 2: sure before you go your batteries are good. You know,
Speaker 2: when we went hunting with Giannis, then my batteries died
Speaker 2: on like day three, day two. So I'm like borrowing,
Speaker 2: mooching off somebody else's water filtration system. And I mean
Speaker 2: it's doable, but especially if you're like in your really
Speaker 2: bad place, maybe you only want to take one and
Speaker 2: just share. Anyway, if they're you know, some of those pumps,
Speaker 2: you know, they have a little bit of weight to them.
Speaker 2: But yeah, but and I thought, you know that stairy
Speaker 2: pin I bought. The reason I bought it is I thought,
Speaker 2: this is gonna be super easy. It's gonna be quick.
Speaker 2: All I gotta do is scoop water into my nal
Speaker 2: gene and then just turn this thing on and stir
Speaker 2: it until the light turns green. And I'm good. Well
Speaker 2: hunting with you and some other guys versus that that
Speaker 2: system versus like a Sawyer water filter and those little bags,
Speaker 2: those little dirty bags you guys get. So you just
Speaker 2: you fill the little bag up, you screw the filter on,
Speaker 2: then you just squeeze it into the nal gene. It's
Speaker 2: actually faster to do that with those little Sawyer filters
Speaker 2: than it is with that stairy pin.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The first cost too, that that Sawyer's cheaper, like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, quite a bit cheaper, and you can if you
Speaker 1: are on elk, but like you mentioned, you don't want
Speaker 1: to climb down two thousand feet if I'm on If
Speaker 1: I'm on Elk, I can dip four bags really quick,
Speaker 1: or you know, you're not not being rushed, but I
Speaker 1: can dip four bags and deal with them later. Where
Speaker 1: you got to sit and stir or you're gonna make
Speaker 1: all of your you know, your your water bottles or
Speaker 1: whatever you're going to keep them, and you could do it.
Speaker 1: I guess you could just have dirty bags and then
Speaker 1: sterrypin them later. But I like the idea of like
Speaker 1: I can carry a lot of dirty water with me
Speaker 1: or whenever I run across that versus the other thing
Speaker 1: that really bothers me at the stairy pin. I've got one.
Speaker 1: I've got the Sawyer squeeze filter. I've got a Cata
Speaker 1: dying pump. You know, we've did io dye, which I
Speaker 1: hate the taste of yeah, and no matter, and then
Speaker 1: you have to drink juice water or flavored water the
Speaker 1: rest of the time. But I don't. And I guess
Speaker 1: this depends. If you know you're going in an area
Speaker 1: with like fresh running creeks, then the stiry pin's fine
Speaker 1: because usually your water, but there have been times deer
Speaker 1: hunting here, and you know the high cascades where I
Speaker 1: know I'm pulling out of a puddle somewhere if I
Speaker 1: don't want to leave the top and the stairy pin
Speaker 1: doesn't get rid of the floaters or the or or
Speaker 1: the color or the sediment or the chunks where my
Speaker 1: sawyer squeeze filter. It's it is relatively light now. It's
Speaker 1: quite a bit smaller than like the old catadyron or
Speaker 1: the the MSR pump squeeze to carry. And I really
Speaker 1: like being able to just squeeze and have like at
Speaker 1: least no chunked water coming out. It may still, you know,
Speaker 1: you can't get rid of the taste some of this
Speaker 1: water's got weird flavors or right, but you least don't
Speaker 1: get the chunks. Yeah, people can say you can take
Speaker 1: it through like a cheese cloth or some people carry
Speaker 1: a little little chunk of cloth so that you're not
Speaker 1: getting getting the grit and grime in there. But the
Speaker 1: one downside to the sawyer is some of the extreme
Speaker 1: weather hunts, if you can't get that thing dry, it'll
Speaker 1: end up cracking the filter. And then you're not filtering
Speaker 1: anything on the on the backside of it, So you
Speaker 1: have to make sure to kind of let that thing
Speaker 1: dry out, shake it out really well, kind of reverse
Speaker 1: pressurize it, and get the water to come back out
Speaker 1: of that that filter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to be very careful about that filter
Speaker 2: getting frozen and cracked. My buddy Donnie he got giardia
Speaker 2: because he was filtering. He was in Alaska hunting and
Speaker 2: was filtering with these with his uh whatever, I don't
Speaker 2: know what brand he had, but he was filtering his
Speaker 2: water and man, he just got sick, super sick. And
Speaker 2: turns out he got had giardia because his is uh filtered,
Speaker 2: frozen broken and he didn't know it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, yeah, So back to the pack. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of options. You know, your your backpack that
Speaker 1: your you know, your Duffels or your your school backpacks.
Speaker 1: They don't have any support. So I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: break this all the way back to the point of
Speaker 1: what what you need in the pack. You know, growing
Speaker 1: up when I was a poor college kid, I used
Speaker 1: in old data designs, which was more geared what I
Speaker 1: would say for backpackers, but it had a very a
Speaker 1: very structural frame. It was an external frame pack. You know,
Speaker 1: you got external the Cabella's Alaskan Extreme packs, and then
Speaker 1: you've got this new tier of you know, Kafaro XO,
Speaker 1: Mystery Ranch, you know these you know, Stone Glacier, these
Speaker 1: higher end that are you know, sometimes their frame sheets,
Speaker 1: sometimes their vertical stays. But what these companies have did,
Speaker 1: They've figured out how to transfer weight very very well,
Speaker 1: keep it off your shoulders as much as possible, transfer
Speaker 1: into your hips, and then create a system where you
Speaker 1: can you ever going to be comfortable, but as comfortable
Speaker 1: as you can be with you know, one hundred plus
Speaker 1: pounds on your back at times because you are trying
Speaker 1: to get meat and camp and everything off of there.
Speaker 1: So I'm not gonna jump into necessarily brands. You know,
Speaker 1: I personally use a KAfari right now. You know, it's
Speaker 1: more of their older hunting duplex. Uh. But I want
Speaker 1: to I want to talk a little bit more about bags.
Speaker 1: I learned early on. You know, I was a guy
Speaker 1: that would roll my sleeping bag up nice and neat
Speaker 1: and put it in its little stuff sack. And then
Speaker 1: I would take my sleeping pad and roll it up
Speaker 1: nice and neat and put it back in its bag.
Speaker 1: I'm now just a stuffer. I wake up. If you're
Speaker 1: spike camping and you're moving with the yelk and you're
Speaker 1: not coming back there, I wake up. I just how
Speaker 1: it is. I'll let the air out of my mattress,
Speaker 1: I'll take and everything just gets shoved in the bottom
Speaker 1: of my bag, and so I don't My bags that
Speaker 1: I like to hunt with typically are one big, big
Speaker 1: open bag with some optics pockets on the outside for
Speaker 1: stuff that I need to get too quick with. It's
Speaker 1: my spotting scope, or whether it's you know, a knife
Speaker 1: or a kill kit or just what you know, headlamp,
Speaker 1: something on the outside, maybe my day's food. But I'm
Speaker 1: a guy that likes to hunt with a big, you know,
Speaker 1: six thousand to seven thousand cubic inch pack. It's a
Speaker 1: little bit overkill for for you know, three or five days.
Speaker 1: But guess what, the pack when you don't need it
Speaker 1: just just compresses and goes away, right it doesn't. I'd
Speaker 1: much rather have the room if needed than than not
Speaker 1: have enough. So that's I'm not an organizer. I stuff
Speaker 1: everything into the bottom I hunt, especially if you're gonna
Speaker 1: hunt with camp on your back. You want all that
Speaker 1: lighter stuff you know, you're sleeping bag, you're sleeping pad, pillows, shelters,
Speaker 1: all needs to go into the bottom of your pack. Anyways,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about you know, how you pack and load,
Speaker 1: distribution and in just a second. But that's that's my
Speaker 1: my morning routine. You take the tent, pulls out your tent,
Speaker 1: your ground cloth, everything you slept on or in goes
Speaker 1: into the bottom, and then you restack your bag on
Speaker 1: top of that is my go to and so not
Speaker 1: a lot of organization skills inside of my pack.
Speaker 2: It's funny what you described on how you pack your
Speaker 2: pack is how I packed my desk full of papers
Speaker 2: when I was in elementary school. I would just shove
Speaker 2: all them papers in there. I see the meme the
Speaker 2: other day is like, hey, hey, where are my people
Speaker 2: at that used to shove all their their papers in
Speaker 2: their desk? How you do it? And somebody says, not
Speaker 2: good man, not good at all. Well, you just described
Speaker 2: how I used to do all my papers and stuff.
Speaker 2: The funny part is I tend to be on the
Speaker 2: the guy that rolls my stuff up and puts it
Speaker 2: back in the little stuff sacks and nice and neat
Speaker 2: and organized. I love my pack organized, and it drives
Speaker 2: me nuts to do it like that because I feel like, man,
Speaker 2: I it's just a hodgepodge of crap in my pack.
Speaker 2: But I agree it is it's more effective. You'll fit
Speaker 2: more stuff in your pack that way, and it's more
Speaker 2: or the load is more equal per se as your
Speaker 2: stuffing in. So I'm trying. I'm trying real hard to
Speaker 2: master that. I mean, I should be a natural at it,
Speaker 2: by the way, to shove the crap in my desk.
Speaker 1: It's cool, and a little bit of it is maybe
Speaker 1: me being lazier. When I wake up in the morning,
Speaker 1: I want that extra I want to hit my snooze
Speaker 1: two more times. Because his bulls start to be a
Speaker 1: goal and you're ready to start, I'm like, I don't.
Speaker 1: I slept for extra fifteen minutes now I can't take
Speaker 1: that extra fifteen minutes. The load stuff up, so it's
Speaker 1: a fire drill to get everything put back. And like
Speaker 1: you'd mentioned it too, though, it things fit better when
Speaker 1: you stuff versus if everything is a perfect circle or
Speaker 1: and it's weird little cylinders like they don't stack together.
Speaker 1: It leaves a lot of air in between, and so
Speaker 1: you actually save or make a lot of the room
Speaker 1: more available in your pack. And then load distributions. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to get into it. I'm not an expert
Speaker 1: on it, but I do like to put my stuff
Speaker 1: on the bottom, around the outside, and on the top.
Speaker 1: This is you know, water bladder if you run, a
Speaker 1: water bladder goes against your back and then your heavier
Speaker 1: stuff like your food, your fuel things I try to
Speaker 1: put against like the center of my back, you know,
Speaker 1: between my shoulder blades. It's like it's ideal spot. And
Speaker 1: so I talk about this, but in reality, usually I'll
Speaker 1: throw I'll stuff all that you know, sleeping stuff that
Speaker 1: I talked about earlier on the bottom that I just
Speaker 1: kind of put stuff around it and then tuck my
Speaker 1: coats or my my you know, my puffy coat and
Speaker 1: stuff around it. So it kind of ends up getting
Speaker 1: packed that way. Where I really pay attention to load
Speaker 1: distribution is when you load up with meat, though, I
Speaker 1: definitely want the center of of that that meat pack
Speaker 1: and you know meat bag or game bag to be
Speaker 1: as close in in between the center and my shoulders
Speaker 1: as possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I agree with that.
Speaker 1: So shelters. There are limitless shelters I have. I have
Speaker 1: went as simple as a sleeping bag on grass, no tivek,
Speaker 1: no ground cloth, just drow a sleeping bag out and sleep.
Speaker 1: We have taken tyvek is like, oh, the weather's supposed
Speaker 1: to be nice for the next four or five days.
Speaker 1: Worst case scenario we get rained on, we'll have to
Speaker 1: walk out of here. But I'm gonna just roll up
Speaker 1: in tivek. There are floorless shelters, which I struggled with
Speaker 1: a lot early on, and that obviously before I just
Speaker 1: slept on the ground in a sleeping bag. It's like
Speaker 1: I didn't like the creepy crawlers, right, I didn't I
Speaker 1: like the ground cloth, like self contained, Like if there's
Speaker 1: not a bug in here, there's not gonna be a
Speaker 1: bug in here. So you got floorless shelters. You've now
Speaker 1: got floorless shelters with some titanium or stove systems that
Speaker 1: are now pretty useful. Single wall, and then you've got
Speaker 1: I've got a Hilliberg, which is a double walled like
Speaker 1: bomb proof shelter. But then you pay for it and wait,
Speaker 1: and all of these things kind of from progressed from
Speaker 1: the most lightweight that only requires a sleeping bag all
Speaker 1: the way up to when you're into a hilliberg double
Speaker 1: wall tent for two guys. Somebody's now packing seven pounds
Speaker 1: worth of tent around. But there are times where that
Speaker 1: makes more sense. So what's your preference, Dirk, or is
Speaker 1: it just really depend on the hunt or what's your
Speaker 1: go to?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've done the Florla shelter, I've done the sleep
Speaker 2: under the stars, I've done the fully enclosed tent. I
Speaker 2: haven't used one that has the stove yet. I feel
Speaker 2: like that's those would be good for two people. Like
Speaker 2: one guy packed the stove, one guy packed the tent
Speaker 2: type of thing at least, But like, like you mentioned
Speaker 2: the creepy crawleys, let's say New Mexico, right, if I
Speaker 2: were to backpack on New Mexico a lot. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you guys know about this, but Jason Phelps
Speaker 2: and cal Ryan Callahan they went elk hunting in New
Speaker 2: Mexico in a place for a week, ten days whatever,
Speaker 2: about a week before I went to the same place.
Speaker 2: So they went there first and then I went there.
Speaker 2: And you know, he did share a little bit of
Speaker 2: the elk intel with me a little bit. I think
Speaker 2: he probably kept a little bit of information to himself,
Speaker 2: if I'm gonna be honest here, But.
Speaker 1: He killed I think he killed the ball on the eck.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Anyway, the funny part is, after like the second day,
Speaker 2: I started getting these weird marks on the inside of
Speaker 2: my elbows, you know, on the inside of your arms.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, man, spiders are must have a big
Speaker 2: old spider in the tent here and we're using that.
Speaker 2: You know, we got a base camp, we got cots
Speaker 2: and everything. I'm like, what the heck is going on?
Speaker 2: I'm looking for spiders. And as the time goes by,
Speaker 2: the bites start getting all over my chest. So basically
Speaker 2: from my waistline up, Man, I look like I've been
Speaker 2: shot with buckshot. Like there's a hundreds of these bites,
Speaker 2: and they're itchy. They itch like nothing you've ever had before. Well,
Speaker 2: it turns out it chiggers. And I had no idea
Speaker 2: that chiggers lived in New Mexico at all. I like,
Speaker 2: have chigger. I picture chiggers like the Deep South or
Speaker 2: you know, Midwest or somewhere. And Phelps is like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: those things ate ate. Ryan Callahan up and I got
Speaker 2: bit pretty good too, and I'm like, well, man, that
Speaker 2: it might might have been some good information. I would
Speaker 2: have like put some promethrone on my clothes and and
Speaker 2: stuff had I known that, because.
Speaker 1: I, honestly, in my defense, I completely forgot to pass
Speaker 1: that on. And hindsight is I had been in that
Speaker 1: unit two years ahead of that and got lit up
Speaker 1: when me and Steve were there, and so I had
Speaker 1: forgot between the hunts that until all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: like day two, You're like, what all it all dawned
Speaker 1: on me, like this place, this green grass in here,
Speaker 1: that time of year is just loaded. But yeah, Floorless
Speaker 1: introduced some of those things you know that that. But
Speaker 1: to be honest, I think I was in a Florida
Speaker 1: shelter the first time. I just think they're on your closers.
Speaker 1: I don't even know how chiggers work, That's how uneducated
Speaker 1: I am about them. But I know that I still
Speaker 1: got lit up the first year, and I think I
Speaker 1: was in a Floord floor shelter that time.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think I got them sitting around. You know,
Speaker 2: you hike in, you sit down, sit down on the ground,
Speaker 2: you do some glass, and maybe you lay down and
Speaker 2: take a nap whatever. I think that's where I got them.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and then they're they're all over and so
Speaker 1: really shelter I tend to pack. You know, everybody's I
Speaker 1: don't even know what you call them, the black tubs
Speaker 1: with the yellow lids. Everybody keeps everything in. When I
Speaker 1: go on a hunt, I pack all of my shelters
Speaker 1: or all of my options. Right, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: there's taiek folded up in the bottom. I've got my
Speaker 1: my big agnes like single man little you know tent.
Speaker 1: I've got my Kafaru saw tooth with its stove in there.
Speaker 1: So if I want to go floorless for three guys
Speaker 1: and have the ability to use a stove, and then
Speaker 1: if the weather forecast is like man, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: absolutely frigid and you're gonna get some snow and you're
Speaker 1: you know, then I'm gonna grab the hilliberg and so
Speaker 1: I kind of bring. And I've also got to seek
Speaker 1: outside ultra light floorless, which is like that Cuban fiber
Speaker 1: or dynama. You can almost see through my tent with
Speaker 1: one carbon pole. For like a pound and maybe two pounds,
Speaker 1: I can get a four man's shelter if needed. You know,
Speaker 1: it's luxury for two guys. And so I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the weather. I'm looking at like the Kafaro sawtooth is
Speaker 1: great if I need. It's not gonna be really cold,
Speaker 1: but we may get some rain. Right, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: scattered showers and I might want to dry stuff out.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna grab the stove and that I can
Speaker 1: get all of that in there front of five pounds.
Speaker 1: So you just you know, Idaho backpack hunt me Entyson
Speaker 1: one on the other day before you left the truck,
Speaker 1: You're like, ah, man, it's not gonna get above. It's
Speaker 1: not gonna get out of the single digits for a
Speaker 1: week straight. And so I'm making decisions like it would
Speaker 1: be awesome to have the stove, but if somebody's not
Speaker 1: gonna sit and stoke that thing all night, the double
Speaker 1: wall is gonna be fifteen to twenty degrees warmer, and
Speaker 1: it's not gonna collapse under the snow. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: have as many issues and condensation. So a double wall
Speaker 1: tent for those I'm not trying to educate everybody on backpacking,
Speaker 1: A single wall tent all your condensation from your breath
Speaker 1: throughout the night, your body heat will go up and
Speaker 1: hit the stove or the tent and basically condensate on
Speaker 1: the inside of your tent and drip back on you
Speaker 1: when it warms up or whatever. A double wall tent,
Speaker 1: the condensation gets through the first mesh layer and sticks
Speaker 1: to the outer wall, and then you don't get dripped on,
Speaker 1: and it makes it ten to fifteen degrees warmer. So
Speaker 1: like on that hunt where we knew it wasn't getting
Speaker 1: away from five degrees very far, we just ended up
Speaker 1: grabbing that hillerberg, which provided a more comfortable night sleep
Speaker 1: because we didn't have to worry about stoking the fire
Speaker 1: and we didn't have to worry about getting dripped on
Speaker 1: all night. So it just it just depends on the
Speaker 1: type of the hunt, the weather, and what you need
Speaker 1: out of your shelter. For what I'm gonna grab when
Speaker 1: I leave the truck.
Speaker 2: And a hack, like if you're gonna use the floorless shelter,
Speaker 2: So I've got a Kafaru floor floorless shelter, and you know,
Speaker 2: you want to put something down between the ground and
Speaker 2: your and your sleeping pad. You don't want to poke
Speaker 2: holes in it. Because pine needles and rocks and stuff
Speaker 2: are kind of kind of sharp. So I have a
Speaker 2: piece of tie beck. A little hack is throw that
Speaker 2: piece of tievek in the laundry and wash it with
Speaker 2: your clothes and then run through the dryer. And and
Speaker 2: what it does is it is it just kind of
Speaker 2: makes it smooths it out, makes it quiet because that
Speaker 2: thing when it's brand new, which I of course I
Speaker 2: didn't do this. It was nice and nice and noisy. Man,
Speaker 2: you lay on on tievek and then you if you
Speaker 2: roll over, flip over, make if you breathe, you know, heavily.
Speaker 2: That stupid tiek will sit there and make crunching noises
Speaker 2: all night long. And if you're sharing a space with
Speaker 2: with someone else, and they're probably gonna want to kill you.
Speaker 2: I wanted to kill I want to kill me because
Speaker 2: I could. Yeah, I could have. Well there again, I'm
Speaker 2: having a hard time sleeping anyway. Now I got that
Speaker 2: crunchy thing going making noise all night long.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and speaking of crunchy, we're gonna get into
Speaker 1: like the sleeping pad. I used to use a big
Speaker 1: agnese Q core sl something like big thick pad. Looks
Speaker 1: like I should be out on the on a lake
Speaker 1: rafting around right. It was super comfortable, but I found
Speaker 1: that the durability wasn't as great. And so then there's
Speaker 1: the what is it, the Thermo rest uh neo air
Speaker 1: X light, whatever the name of it is. So I
Speaker 1: switched to that, which isn't as thick, and so it's
Speaker 1: maybe not as comfortable, but it's way way more durable.
Speaker 1: So for me, I switched to that thermorest and and
Speaker 1: it's been I've gotten way better sleep. The one downside,
Speaker 1: I say I got way better sleep because I don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about blowing the dang thing up all night.
Speaker 1: I don't end up on the ground in the middle
Speaker 1: night with like a slow leak. So that q core
Speaker 1: was a little fragile. Where there's new thermost is a
Speaker 1: lot more durable, but it is also like you're sleeping
Speaker 1: on a bag of lazed potato chips at night, and
Speaker 1: so it does provide additional noise. But I found that
Speaker 1: I sleep better. So it's a little bit of trial
Speaker 1: and there. I know it's a little bit of an
Speaker 1: expensive trial and air, but there are good systems. But
Speaker 1: you know, you can't go wrong with some of the
Speaker 1: big manufacturers. I just needed to find something more durable
Speaker 1: for the way that, you know, we were throwing stuff
Speaker 1: on the ground and I couldn't afford to have any
Speaker 1: more pop pop sleeping pads.
Speaker 2: One thing I'm I'm seriously thinking about before my next
Speaker 2: backpack hunt is getting one of those little ultra light cots.
Speaker 2: They're like low profile. Who builds those things? They make
Speaker 2: the little chairs and oh shoot, anyway designs made.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a bunch of there's different companies.
Speaker 2: They're two three pounds, and I'm a side sleeper, So,
Speaker 2: like I say, I struggle, I'm almost thinking in my
Speaker 2: brother in law, he he does a lot of adventure
Speaker 2: bikes trips and he has used all light backpacking gear
Speaker 2: when he goes and and he has one of those
Speaker 2: little little cots, and he's like, man, is a game
Speaker 2: changer for him having that thing because he could side
Speaker 2: sleep comfortably on a pad. So I'm thinking I might
Speaker 2: just put one of those in I want, and if
Speaker 2: it's warm out, I might almost even skip the pad
Speaker 2: and just have that little ultra like cot. I might
Speaker 2: even try that. Yeah, you know, so I wouldn't really
Speaker 2: be adding that much more weight to my system, but
Speaker 2: maybe just that extra comfort because you don't want to.
Speaker 2: And that's one reason why I don't tend to backpack
Speaker 2: hind a lot too, is because that good night's rest.
Speaker 2: Like if I can sleep in a normal cot and
Speaker 2: get a really good night's rest, I'm ready to go
Speaker 2: in the morning. But if I didn't sleep at all,
Speaker 2: the next day is gonna just suck.
Speaker 1: Ask Dirk lots of questions out next day early in
Speaker 1: the morning, as soon as he's getting up.
Speaker 2: I'm a morning person. No, I'm not.
Speaker 1: So the other part of your sleep says we talked
Speaker 1: about pads a little bit. You're sleeping bag. I've got
Speaker 1: three of them. I've got a Kafaru, which has synthetic insulation,
Speaker 1: and then I've got a marmot helium fifteen degrees and
Speaker 1: I've got a stone glacier fifteen degrees. Even for a
Speaker 1: tall or whatever, they end up being seventy five inches,
Speaker 1: so a little bit taller sleeping bag. I think all
Speaker 1: of these. Maybe the kafar was a little bit over,
Speaker 1: but they're all in that three pound range. Now, why
Speaker 1: would I have You know? Down is great until you
Speaker 1: live in the Pacific Northwest and you're going on a
Speaker 1: hunt in October November. Now, if you can guarantee your shelter,
Speaker 1: so I will take down inside of a Hilleberg tent, right,
Speaker 1: I know it's not gonna get wet. I know it's
Speaker 1: not gonna get dripped on. But if I know that
Speaker 1: I'm going to take a single wall and I have
Speaker 1: a potential for my sleeping bag to get wet or
Speaker 1: damp and I can't draw it out or dry it
Speaker 1: out with a stove, then I'm probably gonna grab that
Speaker 1: synthetic pill just because the nature of down getting wet
Speaker 1: doesn't work as well anymore. So that's kind of why
Speaker 1: I have both. But down, you know, especially for our
Speaker 1: September hunt, early October hunt, when you're maybe not dealing
Speaker 1: with a bunch of rain, is always going to provide
Speaker 1: a little bit more packable system. Warmth seems to be
Speaker 1: a little better for what you're packing. And so we
Speaker 1: do have a few different you know, sleeping bags on hand,
Speaker 1: depending on you know, how wet it's going to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got a down stone glacier and zero degree.
Speaker 2: And when they say zero degree, like a lot of
Speaker 2: bag manufacturers will say, oh, it's this temperature rating but honestly,
Speaker 2: that's the temperature that you won't die, but you're not
Speaker 2: going to be comfortable. So I'm like with that in
Speaker 2: mind about this zero degree bag and that thing. Dude,
Speaker 2: it's it's next level hot.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've slept in like twenty degree weather and like I
Speaker 2: like unzip it and just lay on top of my
Speaker 2: pad and just kind of cover up half of my
Speaker 2: body with it. It's that warm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't know, I believe it was eu rating.
Speaker 1: There's a rating system right where it's not that you're
Speaker 1: not going to die, but it's how you'll actually becomemfortable.
Speaker 1: So I know like Marmott was eu rated, and I
Speaker 1: don't know if Stone Glacier actually is, but it seems
Speaker 1: like that was their standard, like when they say fifteen,
Speaker 1: like you're going to be very very comfortable at fifteen degrees,
Speaker 1: not freezing to.
Speaker 2: Death right right. And then I've got one of those
Speaker 2: Kafaru sleeping bags on the kind of zip down the middle.
Speaker 2: I've got one of those as synthetic. And then my first,
Speaker 2: my first backpacking bag I bought. I bought it in
Speaker 2: the bargain cave at Kabela's. I'm like, oh, yeah, this thing.
Speaker 2: It's like a two hundred dollars bag and it's like
Speaker 2: sixty bucks. I'm like, heck, yeah, I was so jacked
Speaker 2: and I bought it. Well, I hadn't used it until
Speaker 2: I got out in the mountains and the next morning
Speaker 2: I'm trying to unzip it cause it like it zips up.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I had a you know, a hood on it. You're
Speaker 2: kind of zipped up like a mummy in that thing.
Speaker 2: I can't get it unzipped, like the zipper stuck, and
Speaker 2: I think that's why it was in the bargain cave.
Speaker 2: The zipper didn't work right. So I'm played in begging
Speaker 2: with my hunting partners. I'm like, hey, guys, come and.
Speaker 1: Zip this bag.
Speaker 2: I got to get out. I got a pyroal bad.
Speaker 2: And they're like, they're like, we're not getting there nowhere
Speaker 2: near you, man, that's kind of weird. I'm like, no, please,
Speaker 2: please do just come and just get this zipper started
Speaker 2: for me. And they wouldn't do it. I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna just incredible hulk my way out of this thing.
Speaker 2: Screw it. I'm just I'm pissed it. I'm gonna peel
Speaker 2: myself right laying there in bed. So I can't even
Speaker 2: incredible hulk myself out of this thing. It's too well made, right,
Speaker 2: I thought, I'll just bust this thing out the seams. No,
Speaker 2: I'm trapped. So finally, after like a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: pleading and begging and and and they would still wouldn't
Speaker 2: help me. So I had to unzip it, and I
Speaker 2: sprung out of my tent. But you know, try your
Speaker 2: stuff before you go. Try your stuff before you go,
Speaker 2: because if you buy it, it's unclearance or maybe the
Speaker 2: bargain cave somewhere, there's probably a reason why that thing's
Speaker 2: not getting sold for top price.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and then my only you know, my you know,
Speaker 1: some people say you can wad your your puffy jacket
Speaker 1: up and use it as a pillow. I this is
Speaker 1: where I take my one luxury item I get. I
Speaker 1: have a seat of summit, a little inflatable pillow, and
Speaker 1: I always pack that thing. I hate trying my head
Speaker 1: falling off of a lumpy coat or a hit and
Speaker 1: a zipper. So I think, for whatever it is, twelve
Speaker 1: or thirteen ounces, I'm just going to pack this pillow forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I bought one of those two and there again,
Speaker 2: try before you use it. So I bought it like
Speaker 2: and let's say summertime, and my elk hunt wasn't until September.
Speaker 2: So I bought it and then put it, put it
Speaker 2: away and had it ready to go and never even
Speaker 2: aired up, never even used it. I'd seen years before.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, yeah, I think's awesome. So I get
Speaker 2: out there in the mountains, aired up, and the thing
Speaker 2: just keeps going flat. Well, there was a defect or something.
Speaker 2: Well by the time I get back home from hunting
Speaker 2: season now it's too late to even return it. So
Speaker 2: that thing was expensive, So make sure you try it
Speaker 2: before you buy it. Those are really nice pillows. I
Speaker 2: need to buy another one.
Speaker 1: And a pro tip, before you go and blow the
Speaker 1: thing up as big as it'll go, you don't want
Speaker 1: you wanted about five eighths full air.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is the perfect perfect point unless you like a
Speaker 2: super hard pillow, which is I mean maybe your psychopath
Speaker 2: if you do.
Speaker 1: Uh, the last kind of specialty piece that you're we
Speaker 1: already touched on water in the different ways to to
Speaker 1: it's really just come up with your own system. But
Speaker 1: your last thing is your food and cooking right, how
Speaker 1: are you going to eat while you're away from your truck.
Speaker 1: You know, there are extremists that don't pack any any heat,
Speaker 1: not heat any any way to heat your food or
Speaker 1: boil your water. So there are guys that will still
Speaker 1: eat mountain houses or peak meals and literally put cold
Speaker 1: water in them earlier in the day, and like, that's
Speaker 1: not me. I want to I don't want to go
Speaker 1: back there and just be miserable the whole hunt. There
Speaker 1: are some guys that do cold camping where they're packing
Speaker 1: like you know, hard cheeses and salamis and pepperonis, and
Speaker 1: then they don't ever have to ever heat up water.
Speaker 1: So there is a pretty decent system you can use there.
Speaker 1: And then I would say the the more normal is
Speaker 1: for somebody to pack a little teeny can of isobutane
Speaker 1: and then either a jet boil or MSR reactor or
Speaker 1: whatever sort of system you know, for making coffee in
Speaker 1: the morning, for boiling your one hot meal a day.
Speaker 1: I would be lying to say that we haven't ever
Speaker 1: thrown a couple extra bags a top ramen in when
Speaker 1: you want if it's a cold day and you're just like,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be miserable all day, Like you'd be
Speaker 1: amazed at how some warm top ramen for lunch can
Speaker 1: sometimes like be a big, you know, big you know
Speaker 1: lift for the day kind of change the morale and mood.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there, I've seen people pack food from as
Speaker 1: healthy as you can be up to guys that literally
Speaker 1: have two thousand and three thousand calories of candy in
Speaker 1: their bag. It can be from one side to the other.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'll let Dirk at his two cents about,
Speaker 1: you know, packing food and what he tries to do there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just feel like I always, I always have a
Speaker 2: stove of some kind, whether it's the the jet boil
Speaker 2: or the MSR reactor. I like them because they nest
Speaker 2: together with the cup real nice. It just seems the
Speaker 2: you know, the fuel that everything kind of nests together
Speaker 2: real nice. There's some of those little little little stove
Speaker 2: cooker things that look like you know, they're they're tiny,
Speaker 2: they they're they're they just barely are big enough to
Speaker 2: cover the top of your isobutane cartridge, right, and it's
Speaker 2: like a like a puto or whatever. There's some cheap
Speaker 2: Chinese when you can get off Amazon too. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you if you're really wanting to, you know, pinch pennies,
Speaker 2: you can get into those things for super cheap, but
Speaker 2: they don't nest quite as good together with them, you know,
Speaker 2: little pots and stuff. But but the thing is, I
Speaker 2: like to have that that hot, yummy meal at the
Speaker 2: end of the day. Like that's like kind of like
Speaker 2: the the the the little capstone of the day. You know,
Speaker 2: you have you know, you eat eat snack stuff all
Speaker 2: day long and then at night, I have like a
Speaker 2: peaks or a mountain house whatever, dehydrated. But it's hot,
Speaker 2: it's yummy. It makes you kind of feel good inside,
Speaker 2: and it's like all right, yeah, yeah, especially if you
Speaker 2: had a hard day you have been to get your
Speaker 2: teeth kicked in all day, It's like, Okay, tomorrow's gonna
Speaker 2: be good, you know, after you have a nice meal.
Speaker 2: One thing I don't do is I don't put a
Speaker 2: munch of junk food in my in my pack for
Speaker 2: for the snacking or you know, for my breakfast lunch stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, junk food to me, like the super high
Speaker 2: sugar content stuff. I mean, you can get some energy
Speaker 2: out of it pretty quick. But but man, I just
Speaker 2: feel like crap later on whenever I eat that stuff.
Speaker 2: So I try to go as healthy as I can.
Speaker 2: So I do a lot of dried fruits, a lot
Speaker 2: of you know, almonds or nuts or or things like that,
Speaker 2: things that are healthy, healthy choices that don't have a
Speaker 2: high sugar content but do have a high chloric content,
Speaker 2: a lot of protein, a lot of maybe natural sugars
Speaker 2: or whatever. And I seem to do way better on
Speaker 2: that stuff. So, but I do know guys that, like,
Speaker 2: they operate on snicker bars and rollos all day long,
Speaker 2: and you know they can. They can make it up
Speaker 2: and down the mountain and mountain dew. I mean, they'll
Speaker 2: have mountain dew in their pack. But for me, I
Speaker 2: just I can't. I can't operate like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I'm kind of in the middle. Depends, you know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I've tried to eat keto all the way through
Speaker 1: where I'm eating MCT oil and nut butters and parmers,
Speaker 1: you know, chunks of parmesan cheese and brick works. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it works. But nowadays I'm just like, I
Speaker 1: just pack what I want to eat. You know, back
Speaker 1: in the day, we always heard like if it doesn't
Speaker 1: have one hundred calories per ounce. It doesn't belong in
Speaker 1: your pack. And I'm like, you know what I want
Speaker 1: to enjoy, either my food or It's like, if I
Speaker 1: want to bring something that doesn't meet that, then I'm
Speaker 1: going to bring it. Like I've come to learn that
Speaker 1: that extra pound isn't going to be the differentiator between
Speaker 1: me killing the bowl or not. So I just I
Speaker 1: pack what I want for the day, something that, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's a morale left or just something that might
Speaker 1: be fun, you know, you know, bring something in to
Speaker 1: share with a buddy that nobody thought you'd pack in
Speaker 1: or whatever it may be. That that's kind of and
Speaker 1: I I'm a big guy, you know, while I'm hunting hard,
Speaker 1: I just tend to kind of shoot for twenty five
Speaker 1: hundred to thirty five hundred calories somewhere in there, and
Speaker 1: then I just throw that much in a bag and go.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not I don't get too overboard. If I
Speaker 1: lose a pound, great, If I gained the pound, probably not.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's like it's just food, and I
Speaker 1: don't I don't go to the crazy extremes I used
Speaker 1: to do with like you know, macros and everything laid
Speaker 1: out like I'm just gonna go hunt. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: affect me that that much one way or the other.
Speaker 1: But I do like a hot meal at the end
Speaker 1: of the day. I like, you know, warming up, you
Speaker 1: know something, and it just kind of you know, if
Speaker 1: you're out sleeping under the stars or hanging around around,
Speaker 1: you know, under the with some buddies, it's it's just
Speaker 1: kind of nice to to eat a hot meal. And
Speaker 1: then I say, get as long of backpacking spoon as
Speaker 1: you can, because they I feel like the ratio to
Speaker 1: the depth to the width of all of these seal
Speaker 1: of meal bags that everybody uses or not right, because
Speaker 1: you have to get to about your wrist with a
Speaker 1: normal a normal link spoon to get to the bottom corner.
Speaker 1: So you get those long spoons, sporks.
Speaker 2: Spork Yeah, yeah, I agree, And and and pack stuff
Speaker 2: that you're gonna that you were willing to eat. Let's
Speaker 2: say you and I we spend a lot of days
Speaker 2: in the field every year, and there's some things I
Speaker 2: kind of refuse to eat at this point just because
Speaker 2: you eat it so much every year, Like trail mix.
Speaker 2: There was a time I loved trail mix. If I
Speaker 2: put trail mix in my mouth now, I literally gag.
Speaker 2: I cannot do it. I can't eat any kind of
Speaker 2: protein bars. I can't do those at all, and I
Speaker 2: wish I could, because protein bars you can get some
Speaker 2: really good ones. They are just chalk ful at all
Speaker 2: the good stuff. But I literally will gag if I
Speaker 2: put those in my mouth just because of eating too
Speaker 2: many of them. So you have to like get creative
Speaker 2: and find things that like to have high coleric and
Speaker 2: content but it tastes good and that you will be
Speaker 2: willing to eat that You're just not forcing yourself to
Speaker 2: eat and that can and if you hunt a lot
Speaker 2: that that definitely is a challenge.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And you know, I'm gonna we were gonna
Speaker 1: kind of that kind of wraps up that gear and
Speaker 1: kind of what you need. I mean, those are kind
Speaker 1: of that's the foundation of backpack hunting. Everything else. You know,
Speaker 1: your weapons are going to be the same. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna get into strategy. We're going to talk on that
Speaker 1: a little bit, but we're kind of running up against
Speaker 1: the end here, you know, meat care. I would say
Speaker 1: backpack hunting can sometimes lead you farther or potentially farther
Speaker 1: from from the truck the normal, So just make sure
Speaker 1: you're you're thinking about that if you were to kill
Speaker 1: something here, like is there a creek available? Is this
Speaker 1: a really dry area? Is it really hot right now
Speaker 1: in the middle of September? Like, how are you going
Speaker 1: to make sure that that meat can it can all
Speaker 1: be taken care of, you know, as you're hunting further
Speaker 1: and further away from the rig. Yeah, is another important topic.
Speaker 2: I feel like some people sometimes get the mindset like, oh,
Speaker 2: we'll kill it first and then worry about it later.
Speaker 2: But man, you have to kind of go into it
Speaker 2: with a with a game plan, like I know, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have to be able to take care of this meat.
Speaker 2: It needs to cool down quickly, and then I need
Speaker 2: to be able to get it out in an effective way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then you know, as you're calculating time, you
Speaker 1: know these you know, air and temperature is equally important,
Speaker 1: especially in that first twenty four to forty eight, So
Speaker 1: you need to sing the air out. You needed to
Speaker 1: keep cool. Once it does cool down that first night,
Speaker 1: you really don't want to let it warm back up,
Speaker 1: you know, above that thirty eight to forty degrees if possible,
Speaker 1: So you're just you're trying to make sure you're doing
Speaker 1: everything you can can there.
Speaker 2: And one thing, Oh, go ahead and say one thing.
Speaker 2: You know, with social media and people talking a lot
Speaker 2: and you just guys being guys in general, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of bravado out there. And I know a lot
Speaker 2: of hunters, you know, whether it's hometowns or everywhere you go.
Speaker 2: You talk to people and there's a little bit of
Speaker 2: like this this idea like, oh, yeah, you know, I
Speaker 2: threw one hundred pounds on my back and packed it,
Speaker 2: you know, ten miles. Well, I'm here to tell you,
Speaker 2: walking ten miles with no no weight, it's kind of
Speaker 2: hard in the mountains. So you throw one hundred pounds
Speaker 2: on that might might might kill you, that might break you.
Speaker 2: So you like, know your limitations, understand. I mean, maybe
Speaker 2: you've trained for it all summer and in your superhero
Speaker 2: strength and cardio and your excellent shape. That's awesome, good,
Speaker 2: But man, a lot of the just average Joe's people
Speaker 2: like me, that's got to average average Joe fitness level.
Speaker 2: I know my limitations, and I know I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: be able to pack out giant loads for for an
Speaker 2: extended time, like ten miles or I mean four miles
Speaker 2: is no joke. Four miles will hurt you too, So
Speaker 2: just be cognizant of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in my system where I drop the meat into
Speaker 1: like one hundred liters dry sack and then the like
Speaker 1: it's not gonna be good to be in there for
Speaker 1: you know. So there's all this stuff I'm thinking about, like,
Speaker 1: all right, you you let it air out, you know
Speaker 1: it's better off, but then you know the heat's out
Speaker 1: of it. You don't really want it to spoil because
Speaker 1: of no air, And so I'm I'm thinking about all this.
Speaker 1: So if it's a long high out and I won't
Speaker 1: have the ability to keep getting the meat out and
Speaker 1: letting it dry, or you know, I might just end
Speaker 1: up I have a pack where my bag will pull away,
Speaker 1: so I might just keep it out in the air
Speaker 1: and avoid using my dry sack. So it's just you
Speaker 1: just need to be smart. You need to understand on
Speaker 1: these long pack outs, especially if it's you know, an
Speaker 1: entire day or multiple days for some people, if you
Speaker 1: don't have a big hunting party or people to help you,
Speaker 1: just just you know that that's sometimes my own limitation
Speaker 1: is like if I was to kill something here, could
Speaker 1: we get the meat out? And that's what stopped me
Speaker 1: from going any farther, So keep that in mind. Extreme weather.
Speaker 1: One thing that some people may overlook is the extreme
Speaker 1: weather on these hunts and the inability to go turn
Speaker 1: your truck on and turn your heater on right if
Speaker 1: that was your If you're at a base camp, you
Speaker 1: can at least go dry stuff out that way. When
Speaker 1: you're in the mountains, you're pretty much or you're in
Speaker 1: the mountains backpack hunting, you kind of lose all of
Speaker 1: that ability. So the extreme cold weather hunt I was
Speaker 1: talking to Dirik about, we would we had a wyoming saw.
Speaker 1: That's another little crucial piece. How are you going to
Speaker 1: start a fire if you need to? We had a
Speaker 1: wyoming saw. We created fires every day when it was
Speaker 1: five degrees all day long, snow and it was twenty
Speaker 1: inches of snow. We would start a fire and we
Speaker 1: would set our guns around the fire as we were glassing.
Speaker 1: We would then walk back to camp, get in a
Speaker 1: freezing cold tent and it would the gun would freeze up. Well,
Speaker 1: one thing we didn't realize until we had crazy pressure
Speaker 1: signs when I shot the buck that I did you know,
Speaker 1: primer's just falling out of the gun. Well, coming to
Speaker 1: think of it, he's like, well, there was, you know,
Speaker 1: talking about it, the connensation had been building up inside
Speaker 1: the action in the barrel and would freeze and would
Speaker 1: never get out of there. So that first shot where
Speaker 1: I would basically you know, cause the pressure issue because
Speaker 1: of that. And so it's just thinking like I should
Speaker 1: have just left that gun out in the cold all
Speaker 1: the time, like, never let it get near a heat source.
Speaker 1: So there's these little things that we probably can't go
Speaker 1: through all the little lessons we learned, but there's stuff
Speaker 1: like that where all right, does your bow just need
Speaker 1: to be hung in a tree all night while asleep,
Speaker 1: you know, don't let it get hot and cold, and
Speaker 1: you know, or a gun, especially where you got metal
Speaker 1: metal metal barrels heating and cooling, like you want to
Speaker 1: avoid that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially muzzleloaders. That's like guys that having a lot
Speaker 2: of issues with misfires with your muzzleloaders. If you're if
Speaker 2: you're going in and out of a hot truck or
Speaker 2: in you know, hunt all day, we're in the freezing cold,
Speaker 2: and then you take it in the cabin or wherever
Speaker 2: you know, and get warm in your gun and your
Speaker 2: muzzleloader up and you're not discharging that that charge every day.
Speaker 2: You have to think all that condensation stuff is going
Speaker 2: to affect your powder and it's going to affect the
Speaker 2: way your muzzleloader goes off. So that's like a big,
Speaker 2: big pro tip. Like if you're musloader hunting, you know,
Speaker 2: it's if it's cold out, just keep your gun out
Speaker 2: in the cold, keep it out of the you know,
Speaker 2: keep it dry of course in a waterproof case or something.
Speaker 2: Just keep it cold the whole time and don't put
Speaker 2: it inside, you know, change your environmentals on it.
Speaker 1: Yep. As I mentioned like a woming like, think about
Speaker 1: the hunt you're going on. What you need. You need
Speaker 1: the ability to start a fire, you need the ability
Speaker 1: to you know, cut firewood whatever it may be. A
Speaker 1: woming saw. You know. Another great kind of specialty a
Speaker 1: piece of equipment or is you know, trekking poles if backpack.
Speaker 1: A lot of times I won't take my trekking poles
Speaker 1: if it's a day hunt. If it's a backpack hunt,
Speaker 1: I almost always pack them, you know, for hard packouts
Speaker 1: and screen fields or uneven terrain. Sometimes those things can
Speaker 1: can save your you know, your bacon as you're trying
Speaker 1: to navigate tough train with heavy heavy loads, so you know,
Speaker 1: trekking poles. I'm trying to think my first aid kit
Speaker 1: doesn't change much on backpack compared to my day hunt.
Speaker 1: I'd heard somebody say a long time ago, and I
Speaker 1: just kind of subscribe to it. I carry ibuprofen, titl,
Speaker 1: a prescribed painkiller, and duct tape as well as Luco
Speaker 1: tape backpack hunting. I will say that Luco tape should
Speaker 1: definitely be in your pack. Any blisters, anything that pops
Speaker 1: up or gear repairs. Luco tapes very very good. But
Speaker 1: back to the first aid kit. If I can't fix
Speaker 1: it with titl, ibuprofen, a prescription pain pill, or duct tape,
Speaker 1: then I've to help anyways because I'm not skilled enough
Speaker 1: to fix anything beyond that. So I keep, you know,
Speaker 1: uh that relatively, you know, and it's the same as
Speaker 1: my day hunt. We you know, if it's I always
Speaker 1: have a little bit of rope in my pack. Trying
Speaker 1: to think, is there anything else as far from like
Speaker 1: trekking pools, Wyoming saws that you would put up on a.
Speaker 2: Well that back to your your your you're saw or
Speaker 2: not your saw, your your first aid kit. So my
Speaker 2: first aid kit, mine's pretty detail. It's got it's got
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff in it. You know, I've I've
Speaker 2: got got bandages, I've got, you know, stuff to attached
Speaker 2: the bandages I've got, I've got a tourniquet. In fact,
Speaker 2: I did a podcast with I call him Jimmy Kits.
Speaker 2: He sells these, these these first aid kits. But anyway,
Speaker 2: sometimes you know, let's say you're by yourself or you
Speaker 2: have a buddy. Let's say you're you're you're skinning out
Speaker 2: an elk or breaking down a bowl, and and you
Speaker 2: cut yourself in and it's a bad bleed, like you're
Speaker 2: going to bleed out. Like you got to have a tourniquet.
Speaker 2: You got to have something to put on there. But
Speaker 2: you have to actually know how to use it too.
Speaker 2: So you have to be able to put it on.
Speaker 2: So get that thing out, practice with it one handed,
Speaker 2: you know, act like you've maybe had you cut your
Speaker 2: one hand or whatever it is, like, you have to
Speaker 2: be able to get to it. Don't have it buried
Speaker 2: in the bottom of your pack, have it accessible, quickly accessible,
Speaker 2: and the outside of your pack. Make sure your partner
Speaker 2: knows where it's at. And that way if you do
Speaker 2: cut yourself in a bad way, that you can quickly
Speaker 2: stop the bleeding, because I mean it's no joke. You
Speaker 2: can bleed out really quick if you stab yourself in
Speaker 2: the in the drowing with a with a have loin
Speaker 2: or something. I mean, it's it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And if you pack a first aid kit like mine,
Speaker 1: hunt with a buddy like dirt, so you have access
Speaker 1: to all that and you off to pack it around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why it hunts with me. Also, I was
Speaker 2: going to say, talk about your wyoming saws. So I
Speaker 2: learned about these other saws. I don't even know if
Speaker 2: they said the name of them. But on what's that
Speaker 2: show called Alone, Clay was on. But those those those
Speaker 2: people on there will have these saws. They're called silky
Speaker 2: silky saw. It's like a big folding saw. But these
Speaker 2: things are like next level. They'll just they'll just eat
Speaker 2: wood around all around a freaking wyoming saala like wyoming
Speaker 2: saws like what Grandpa had in the eighties. But these silkies.
Speaker 2: You got to check these things out, Jason. They just
Speaker 2: they'll power through like big big wood really quickly, So yeah, definitely,
Speaker 2: and they're pretty cheap. You can get them off Amazon
Speaker 2: or wherever you like to shop. You can get those things.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And the last piece to my first aid kit,
Speaker 1: which is always like the the SOS button, is like
Speaker 1: we carry those garmen, you know, in reaches, the little
Speaker 1: guys contact anybody, you know, major emergency, somebody's getting sick
Speaker 1: and might not be able to get out or something like.
Speaker 1: That's always the last resort. Plus, while you're backpack hunting,
Speaker 1: it's nice to have, you know, the ability to contact
Speaker 1: the outside world if you need to bring in packers
Speaker 1: or if you have people on standby, just let people
Speaker 1: know how the hunt's going. If you want to. You
Speaker 1: can leave bread breadcrumbs for your significant other or send
Speaker 1: them messages. All of that's available. So that's something else
Speaker 1: we do care. You know, I only run like the
Speaker 1: three month plan, so I activate it for September, October,
Speaker 1: November and typically turn it off after that. But nice
Speaker 1: little peace of mind when you don't have any service.
Speaker 1: I know, you're out in the back country trying to
Speaker 1: dodge service in all normal life, but it is nice
Speaker 1: to have contact back to the rest of the world,
Speaker 1: the connected world while you're out there. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It makes it easier on your family too, you know,
Speaker 2: like if you're gone a lot, then it's nice to
Speaker 2: get updates from you and stay in touch, and it
Speaker 2: makes makes them feel like they're part of it and
Speaker 2: you're just not that. Is he going to come back?
Speaker 2: Is he okay? Is he dead out there? Did he
Speaker 2: break his leg and laying on a mountain side crying
Speaker 2: like it's it's good to have that connection back back
Speaker 2: home for sure.
Speaker 1: Pretty soon hunting with Dirt, this is the progression Dirk
Speaker 1: went from or Fino to the Meridian. You're probably get
Speaker 1: mad at me for telling this because of internet service.
Speaker 1: He claims it's because of his kids and stuff, but
Speaker 1: he really needed faster internet. So and then now he's
Speaker 1: gonna go from Radium when we go hunting, he's gonna
Speaker 1: probably bring those new like mobile starlink like for RVs
Speaker 1: and stuff. So we're gonna get setting up our backpack
Speaker 1: camp and Dirt's gonna pull out a starlink set up
Speaker 1: so he can power up. We're gonna have I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have full WiFi and stuff. We'll be streaming YouTube in
Speaker 1: the back Country.
Speaker 2: Well, dang it, Phelps, I was gonna surprise you with
Speaker 2: that this fall.
Speaker 1: Dang it, this is this is uh, nobody's still my idea.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna start working with Elon for like the
Speaker 1: backpack Hunter's version of Starlink, Like we're gonna come up
Speaker 1: with a real small antenna and see if we can't
Speaker 1: get that hooked up for everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. You just make a call and
Speaker 2: he'll probably.
Speaker 1: Be like, yeah, I'll make he he was gonna call
Speaker 1: me today anyways, So I'll just talk to him about
Speaker 1: that when he calls me.
Speaker 2: He probably you know, he'd probably let you be have
Speaker 2: a certified account on Twitter or x I guess they
Speaker 2: call it now. Yeah, so you guys are he probably
Speaker 2: just wants the blue check mark. Yeah, you get the
Speaker 2: blue check markets.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, Well, I appreciate having you on, Derek. We're bumping.
Speaker 1: This might be the longest episode we ever produced, But hey,
Speaker 1: who knew when you talk to the gurus of one
Speaker 1: of backpack Hunting you get a long episode.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean we could, we could, We could
Speaker 2: go all day about this information. We're so learned.
Speaker 1: No, it's it's a fun way to hunt. I'm glad.
Speaker 1: You know, growing up, I never thought I would ever
Speaker 1: backpack hunt. My hunting consisted of waking up early, getting
Speaker 1: to a landing, glassing a clear cut, and then jumping
Speaker 1: in the timber. And that's but I'm glad that it's
Speaker 1: kind of added to It's just it's just a tool
Speaker 1: in the toolbox, right. It's just like the ability to
Speaker 1: call elk. I look at you know, calling elk, or
Speaker 1: being in good shape or understanding elk. It's just one
Speaker 1: of It's just another tool. Like backpack hunting is an
Speaker 1: extension of who I am is an elk hunter and
Speaker 1: or deer hunter. And if I think that that's my
Speaker 1: best chance to kill something, then I'm gonna use use
Speaker 1: what I've got to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I like it. I don't like
Speaker 2: to do it all the time, but when I do
Speaker 2: do it, I enjoy it. If you enjoy doing hard things,
Speaker 2: then you'll like it. You know. It's it's it's it's
Speaker 2: a romantic way to look at it. At a hunt,
Speaker 2: you know, whether it's elk hunting or deer hunting or
Speaker 2: whatever kind of whatever you're pursuing, or bears, whatever, it's
Speaker 2: a romantic way to hunt. You're like, oh, man, that
Speaker 2: would be so fun to be, you know, camping out
Speaker 2: every night and all this stuff. But the romance kind
Speaker 2: of kind of leaves when the weather gets bad and
Speaker 2: and you're or you're in a physical suck fest. But
Speaker 2: but it's still if you enjoy those hard things, and
Speaker 2: then you'll you'll enjoy backpack hunting for sure.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. Backpack hunting is definitely that type too fun,
Speaker 1: but when it all works out, it definitely adds adds
Speaker 1: to the hunt. So yeah, yep, thank thanks everybody. Appreciate
Speaker 1: all your guys support, and we'll catch you on the
Speaker 1: next episode of Cutting the Distance.
Speaker 2: See you, guys, and Attracted Man