Extended adventures

littlebighorn

littlebighorn

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In 1974 Jack O'Connor wrote, "no 60 or 45 day pack trips any more but even a 21 day trip is almost unheard of."---I love pack trips and I love getting away from people, telephones, the smell of gasoline, typewriters, cocktail parties, television,(etc). Long pack trips enable one to get back to basics. On each trip I relearn how important such things as food, warmth, and rest are.----My Iranian friends tell me that Allah does not count in total of mans days the time he spends on hunting trips."

I'm closer to Old Jack's era than the majority of followers of this forum but I'm curious what most of you consider to be an extended adventure?

My longest is about 18 days.
 
That's some where near 16 days longer than mine LBH. Not counting drive time. I've driven six days, for a 48 hour hunting trip. Kind of screwed up, huh?

Never could put that much time into my recreational hobbies. Now I'm too old to learn the skills required for that kind of life style. Not sure I'd want to if I could, maybe because it does sound fun and adventurous but probably not. I get crotch itch after two days without a shower and some Dove soap!

I kind of envy folks like yourself and ole Jack but never enough to put the necessary effort into it to making it happen. Hell, my attention span doesn't hold for three hours, let alone three weeks.

Sure would like to hear about your activities and encounters on your 18 day walk about.

DC
 
Just got back from a ten day cruise, and that about killed me. Would much rather hunt and scout with 3 to 4 day trips out west.
 
LAST EDITED ON Jun-16-17 AT 08:35PM (MST)[p]7 days. Would have stayed longer but we had another week long hunt scheduled in another state. I fully enjoy being up in the high lonesome.

I don't consider 7 days to be an "extended" trip. That's just the longest I've done.
 
I have been on 10 day remote pack-in trips with my llama pack-string.

The 4 of them and myself wasted no time getting off the mountain after breaking camp down!!!! haha

Now most all of my extended hunts are out of a RV or a cozy Cabin!

Robb
 
LAST EDITED ON Jun-17-17 AT 07:15AM (MST)[p]LAST EDITED ON Jun-17-17 AT 07:13?AM (MST)

I've done a few trips that were right at about 2.5 weeks away from home but I wasnt always hunting or in the mountains that entire time. The longest in a single area without going into town is about 8 to 9 days. But I've often bought about 14 days of food/supplies at the store because I never know when I'll be back in town - better to have it because the drive to a town can take up half a day or more in some places.

I'm hoping if I get a tag in Wyoming this year I'll be gone about 2.5 weeks which includes travel time.

I will say its hard to coordinate with hunting buddys when I go on these trips - they really cant get away for more than a week for various reasons.

I'd say anything longer than 2 weeks in this day and age is an extended adventure.
 
Good read - I've had some great extended adventures, 8-day DIY Alaska caribou hunt with my son 20 yrs ago. Here's a twist on this topic - I planned an 18-day DIY solo bighorn sheep hunt in WY unit 5 back in '82. Had a friend horsepack me and my spike camp 14 miles into the Washakie Wilderness a week before the rifle season opened on Sept. 1. Planned to scout for a week, but I took my bow along because WY had a 15-day archery pre-season, just in case. Well to make a long story short, I shot a great ram with my bow on day 2. Unbelievable! and definitely the high point of all my hunting adventures. So my long-planned extended sheep hunt ended up being being a much shorter hunt of a lifetime.

My longest adventures now are 4-10 days chasing big bucks on the North Kaibab in the travel trailer or tent. Still dream of adventures that might have been, but the years are going by - the adventures in my mind and memory are now my great adventures. Love to read Andy Russell, esp. "Trails of a Wilderness Wanderer".

Now it's all about the animals & the places they live, the planning & preparation, the scouting, hunting companions, the woodcraft, and the stalk - and seeing the joy in others when they are successful.
 
Spent 18 days in Northern B.C. back in 1999. I didn't shoot anything, but packed several animals off the mountain. Trailed horses 20 something miles, wore the same clothes for 14 days, and spent almost every night under a tarp fly. The last night I was able to sit around and talk with the outfitter about his sheep hunts with the famous hunters of the 70's & 80's. The last morning planes couldn't land at the airport due to weather, so I drove one of the outfitter's trucks from Dease Lake to Watson Lake, Yukon to catch the last plane headed south. It truly was one of the great adventures in my life!
 
Driven that road as well dwalton, actually started a few miles south of Dease Lake off Highway 16, the Yellowhead Highway and went on up to Whitehorse, Yukon.

Pretty wild country back in there. After my trip I read Descent Into Madness: The Diary of a Killer, Michael Eugene Oros that spent time in Telegraphy Creek and Dease Lake before killing Michael Joseph Buday a Constable with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, out on Teslin Lake.

It's not just wild country but there are still some wild folks living back in those trees.

In 2012, it was my intent to buy property and move to Northern British Columbia, (I have duel citizenship) where I could spend my summers and falls. After a month, visiting those communities and traveling those roads, I reconsidered, and spent the money to re-model my home in Utah. That little corner of paradise is just a little too course for me, and clearly, they're right proud of it.

Reading about the characters involved in "Descent Into Madness", including the good guys, confirmed my observations, about life in Northern British Columbia. Wouldn't care to live there, but it's great place to hunt/fish/visit thought!!

And...... to be right honest, so as to make it clear to anyone that lives there, I'm sure no one from Northern BC is broken hearted that I reconsidered. ;-)

DC
 
Were has the time gone? When I was young I had dreams of many extended adventures, but family and professional obligation always seemed to be more important. I'm almost ashamed to admit I've never been on a more than 5 day hunt. Now I'm 66 years old, and too stoved up to do it without help. Now don't feel sorry for me, I've spent hundreds of days in the hills sometimes alone, but mostly with family. These times I treasure. Mostly now I'm the tag along with family and friends. This year I drew an elk tag and have plans to spend the whole season on the mountain with my horses and any family and friends that will join me. I used to tell my kids "Work first, then we play..". I had it backwards.
 
Not necessarily BacDoc. Without work, it's hard to play with any degree of satisfaction. I'm betting you taught the right lessons in your house, regarding responsibility and recreation. Not everyone can hunt and sell video's for a living, some of us need to marry, have children, feed, and educate them! :D

Too many not working enough these days!

Work hard......Play hard!

DC
 
My grandpa hunted 19 days to get his Desert Bighorn in southern Utah, then drove home to spend one night and wash his clothes before leaving for 12 days to Wyoming for his Rocky Bighorn.

Another time he hunted 30 straight days in Africa and came home without his hunting buddy who was infected with African Sleeping Sickness.

I'm not hardcore enough to hunt like those ol' timers used to.

Grizzly
 
14 days. Between our Junior and Senior years of high school my Dad dropped me and a friend off at a trail head in the Marble Mountain Wilderness in northern CA. "Someone well meet you back here in 2 weeks. Have fun."

Our camping gear, a few staples, fishing gear, a .22 rifle, and a map.

I highly recommend it to every kid. Now days if your electricity goes out for a few hours people are almost in a panic. I just laugh.
 
LAST EDITED ON Jun-19-17 AT 09:02PM (MST)[p]I haven't felt much like responding to this post with Zeke's tragedy weighing heavy, but I wanted to add a few thoughts as a personal diversion.
Ol' Jack's quote also includes, "Instead of spending those long and interesting days on the trail, most hunters today want to fly into a lake in sheep country, grab a rifle, go bounding up the hillside, knock off a 40" ram, and get back to the Little Woman and the Old Salt Mine as soon as possible."
I think what Jack was saying is, a real hunting adventure is much more than just killing a trophy. It requires one to have a highly unusual outdoor experience.

In my mind, a true hunting adventure doesn't have to be measured in weeks, as long as some real time and effort are put into the outing and being gone long enough to forget what day of the week it is really helps. Also, being isolated, and away from other humans greatly enhances my experience, and having a few friends or family along makes it even better.

No doubt work and family obligations take highest priority for most of us and early in life it's really hard to get away from those responsibilities. But especially in my advancing years, I've been able to carve out a half dozen or more, longer than a week hunting/fishing adventures. They have all been truly incredible experiences, especially since all have been with my son in tow.

If it's not something that you have been able to do, I strongly recommend giving it a go.

And DC, I'd love to tell you about my adventures, but I'd likely bore you to death.
No doubt some things you just have to experience in person to appreciate.
 
My son and I try to make it as long as we can each year. About three years ago he and I went to Utah for the OTC Elk hunt with cousins for five days and then drove down to Southern Utah for a deer hunt by Monticello for anther 8 days so with drive time we were gone a total of 16 days with 13 days hunting.

It was one of the best trips and we had a blast. No Elk but two big bucks and a lifetime of memories.
 
Longest pack trip for me was 12 days. The thing I looked forward to the most was sitting in a chair with a backrest.

Btw, what's a typewriter?
 
Longest pack was 8 days. I did sail my own 32 foot sailboat from Annapolis to Dominica over a 6 month period and hitchhike and boat bum acros the South Pacific, New Zealand, and Australia for 9 months when I was much younger though.
 
8 or 10 days seems to a pretty good break point from my experience. That's about when the thoughts of home really start kicking in. Funny thing is, takes 2 or 3 days to feel "prime" in the high country, so you're really just starting to get rolling at that point. Longest I've been out was 17 days back in 2012. By the end of the trip, I felt like a million bucks physically, little wore out mentally.
 
I spent 11 days on Dutton in 2014 during the November late bull hunt, that was a great time! Saw the weather go from 60's and short sleeves, to zero with 30 mph sustained wind. Hell of a hunt!

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I spent 10 days on a backpack camp in the high Uinta wilderness area 15 miles from the nearest road, just fishing and camping. It was almost too much of a good thing. The ground started getting really hard after about a week. I've never spent more than a week on a hunting trip, and never had a hunting that was long enough, let alone "too long".

I spent a week at Doc Warner's fishing camp in Alaska once. There was a guy there helping with the cooking and scheduled for two weeks. He worked half time and got to fish half time, and the trip was free. They told him he could go home after one week. He told me "that's okay, I'm starting to miss my wife anyway". I told him, "Heck, I've had so much fun here, I've almost forgotten I even have a wife."
 

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