HuntingNet.com Forums - View Single Post - My First Ever Elk Hunt - SW CO - Any Advise?
Old 08-06-2011, 06:27 PM
  #13  
Alsatian
Giant Nontypical
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location:
Posts: 6,357
Default

Everyone has different experiences. I live at 600 feet just North of Dallas. Last year I drove out to Taos, New Mexico, in a day; drove up to 10,000 feet; parked the car; hiked up to 11,000 feet for lunch. No problem, not altitude sickness. Next day we started out very early;parked at 9,400 feet; climbed with moderately heavy backpacks to 12,300 feet; camped over night at 12,000 feet; next morning climbed 13,161 foot wheeler peak. I was 54 years old and NOT a marathon runner. I did have my weight in control. My main exercise had been walking.

Still, since you have never been in the mountains before -- I had been backpacking in the mountains many times before and had hiked those specific paths before -- you don't know how you will react. If you are overweight, this is going to be your biggest difficulty and not something easily overcome. I'm 6' 2" and weighed about 205 LBS when I started these trips last summer. If I had been 240 LBS . . . no friggin way I could have done what I did.

At this point you have limited options. You may not have much time to lose weight or get in condition. By the way, walking is a good conditioning exercise, very good. The main draw back is that the benefit is based on distance -- running you cover more distance in the same period of time, thus equivalent work out walking burns about 3 times as much time as running. But it works and out-of-shape people can do it.

Have some contingency plans in mind. Contact a packer in advance to see if you can hire someone to pack out your elk if you score. Think about hunging close to your truck. Are you hunting with other veteran hunters? Maybe they can provide some advice to you.

Last edited by Alsatian; 08-06-2011 at 06:30 PM.
Alsatian is offline