Pratice with yoursurvival equipment
M.Bird
3/24/10 2:56pm
I did not want to HIJACK the post about survival equipment with a long story so have fun reading.
Fall of 1995, while station at Cheyenne Wy, I was moonlighting as a hunting guide. The person that I was working for had spent the previous year teaching me how to pack in on horses; I was the wrangler/skinner/cook/gopher for his camp the first year with him. He has two clients from California that want to do a high country deer hunt, must oh his deer hunts are done in the foot hills and river bottoms, but they want to pack-in for a deer hunt. I’m tasked with setting up the high camp (this is our elk camp) 2 weeks early. Set up goes well, make the 4 ½ hour trip from the trailhead with a string of 5 ponies, do the set up of 3 tents, pen repairs and come off the mountain at night (luckily a full moon). Hunters arrive, go though their gear, get it set-up in panniers ready to go the next morning, as I pack their bags into the panniers, I notice that they have no survival packs, so I pack my extra bags (we won’t need any of this stuff).
Nice ride up the next day, they have never done a pack-in trip, lots of unscheduled stops and breaks, but make it up to camp, get everything unloaded and all the other requirements. Opening day goes very well in the morning, I have both the hunters they did a coin flip for first shot. We ride about 2 miles from camp and start the hunt, very nice 4pt comes out, starts feeding along the edge of the trees, hunter is excited, but make him wait, deer is feeding towards us, he ended up with a 120yd broadside shot and has an nice buck. Get him back to camp, both hunters need a nap from the altitude, I wake them up about 2pm. 1st hunter declines to go out, say that you will have better chances with only 2 people in the woods.
We walk out of camp cross the main trail and enter the stand of lodge pole pine, we have to travel about ¾ of a mile on flat ground though the lodge pole and come out on the edge of a large valley, go over a small knoll though the sage brush flats over another knoll to the Dinosaur ridge. Well we get to the ridge and start glassing, and keep glassing, see a couple of bucks but no worth chasing, he spots a nice herd of elk, forget about deer he wants to see the elk, it starting to get cold, spitting a little snow (9000 ft mark in Wyoming in Oct). He keeps asking for 10 more minutes, finally I tell him we have to go, to get though the lodge pole before dark. Well by now you have it figured out we did not make it though the lodge pole.
We walked off Dinosaur ridge to the sage flats turned into the lodge pole and started going uphill, back to the sage flats, on the trail into the lodge pole and uphill again, told him this was the last try, your right, uphill one more time.
He is not sure about the night in the woods, he has very little with him in way of equipment. I find 3 trees in the shape of a triangle about 8 feet apart, place my pack in the middle of them and get to work. Cut down some small lodge pole and start building the sides of the triangle, wind to the point, get that high enough to sit up in and start the top with the pine branches, take one of the space blankets and put that on the inside of the triangle, and pull out all the rocks, now we are getting some snow, string the poncho over the top using the 550 cord. Set the rocks about 3 feet in front of the opening and dig out the front area, we now have about a 1 ½ to 2 inches of snow on the ground must everything is wet and this guy is not happy. I gather a bunch of pine needles and small green wood, (I can see him thinking, no way a fire with everything wet, I pull out my heat tabs (old C rations type, Trioxane) and place that in the middle of the pine needles, we have fire, once the coals got going, I heated water and gave him an MRE (had to show him how to heat it and everything else). He was getting happy now, belly full of warm food, he’s in the shelter with heat being banked into the shelter (warm, dry and feed). Gave him the other space blanket to curl up with, At first light, I went back to the sage flat and found the error that I had made. Went back to camp woke him up (Dam he could snore) buried the fire, retrieved the space blankets, poncho and 550 cord, walked back to camp and had breakfast.
I was to check in by radio every night from 7-8 with the owner, when I talked to him the next day, he asked what happen, I explained that I wanted to spend a night in the woods, he asked if I got lost in the lodge poll. That afternoon the hunter shot a nice 5X4 deer and back at camp before dark.
You can have all the equipment in the world, but if you don’t know how to use it, it’s worthless. I guided for the same pair of hunters 2 yrs later and he still talk about that night.
V/R
M. Bird
Fall of 1995, while station at Cheyenne Wy, I was moonlighting as a hunting guide. The person that I was working for had spent the previous year teaching me how to pack in on horses; I was the wrangler/skinner/cook/gopher for his camp the first year with him. He has two clients from California that want to do a high country deer hunt, must oh his deer hunts are done in the foot hills and river bottoms, but they want to pack-in for a deer hunt. I’m tasked with setting up the high camp (this is our elk camp) 2 weeks early. Set up goes well, make the 4 ½ hour trip from the trailhead with a string of 5 ponies, do the set up of 3 tents, pen repairs and come off the mountain at night (luckily a full moon). Hunters arrive, go though their gear, get it set-up in panniers ready to go the next morning, as I pack their bags into the panniers, I notice that they have no survival packs, so I pack my extra bags (we won’t need any of this stuff).
Nice ride up the next day, they have never done a pack-in trip, lots of unscheduled stops and breaks, but make it up to camp, get everything unloaded and all the other requirements. Opening day goes very well in the morning, I have both the hunters they did a coin flip for first shot. We ride about 2 miles from camp and start the hunt, very nice 4pt comes out, starts feeding along the edge of the trees, hunter is excited, but make him wait, deer is feeding towards us, he ended up with a 120yd broadside shot and has an nice buck. Get him back to camp, both hunters need a nap from the altitude, I wake them up about 2pm. 1st hunter declines to go out, say that you will have better chances with only 2 people in the woods.
We walk out of camp cross the main trail and enter the stand of lodge pole pine, we have to travel about ¾ of a mile on flat ground though the lodge pole and come out on the edge of a large valley, go over a small knoll though the sage brush flats over another knoll to the Dinosaur ridge. Well we get to the ridge and start glassing, and keep glassing, see a couple of bucks but no worth chasing, he spots a nice herd of elk, forget about deer he wants to see the elk, it starting to get cold, spitting a little snow (9000 ft mark in Wyoming in Oct). He keeps asking for 10 more minutes, finally I tell him we have to go, to get though the lodge pole before dark. Well by now you have it figured out we did not make it though the lodge pole.
We walked off Dinosaur ridge to the sage flats turned into the lodge pole and started going uphill, back to the sage flats, on the trail into the lodge pole and uphill again, told him this was the last try, your right, uphill one more time.
He is not sure about the night in the woods, he has very little with him in way of equipment. I find 3 trees in the shape of a triangle about 8 feet apart, place my pack in the middle of them and get to work. Cut down some small lodge pole and start building the sides of the triangle, wind to the point, get that high enough to sit up in and start the top with the pine branches, take one of the space blankets and put that on the inside of the triangle, and pull out all the rocks, now we are getting some snow, string the poncho over the top using the 550 cord. Set the rocks about 3 feet in front of the opening and dig out the front area, we now have about a 1 ½ to 2 inches of snow on the ground must everything is wet and this guy is not happy. I gather a bunch of pine needles and small green wood, (I can see him thinking, no way a fire with everything wet, I pull out my heat tabs (old C rations type, Trioxane) and place that in the middle of the pine needles, we have fire, once the coals got going, I heated water and gave him an MRE (had to show him how to heat it and everything else). He was getting happy now, belly full of warm food, he’s in the shelter with heat being banked into the shelter (warm, dry and feed). Gave him the other space blanket to curl up with, At first light, I went back to the sage flat and found the error that I had made. Went back to camp woke him up (Dam he could snore) buried the fire, retrieved the space blankets, poncho and 550 cord, walked back to camp and had breakfast.
I was to check in by radio every night from 7-8 with the owner, when I talked to him the next day, he asked what happen, I explained that I wanted to spend a night in the woods, he asked if I got lost in the lodge poll. That afternoon the hunter shot a nice 5X4 deer and back at camp before dark.
You can have all the equipment in the world, but if you don’t know how to use it, it’s worthless. I guided for the same pair of hunters 2 yrs later and he still talk about that night.
V/R
M. Bird
2,222
Mark
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