Originally Posted by
Muley Hunter
I think a week might be a bit too long for the average hunter training for elk hunting. You may be going past the point of recovery, and getting into losing for fitness.
Whatever training you do make sure you simulate packing out meat too. This means wearing a pack with progressively heavy loads just like you add a little weight in weight training. [/IMG][/URL]
I think you are right on the week off matter. I'm planning to make it 4 days off. I'm not working out as intensly as some of these top flight athletes. By the way, I have laid-off 2 days now and I was thinking as I drove on errands today that I felt really energetic and strong, because of no workout for several days.
I agree on the packing. I hike 4 miles per day with a 70 LBS pack on my back. I worked up to it.
I've hunted elk in the area I'm returning to this year 5 times before. We camp at 11,500 feet and hunt at about that elevation or slightly higher. This is my 6th trip there. On three of those hunts there were several elk to pack out. So I'm familiar with the ardors of DIY elk hunting. I'm never in adequate shape. I always feel I could have done better. At the same time, I never run out of gas and never give up. This year may I may be in my best shape ever, but that remains to be seen. Of course, it only takes an unfortunate momentary error to slip blow out a knee, and all that training is to naught.
My first elk I packed the elk quarters down off the hillside where I cut it up about 150 feet down to a reasonably level trail where my partners helped me pack it out from. The hill was steep and I did some switchback-like traversing back and forth of the hill. But this placed me sideways to the hill which was a bit muddy from snow that had melted. I slipped and strained my knee. Just a minor tweak, but it revealed to me that a bad knee was just a slip away.