Base camp or Pack in Camp?

[Olydog09]

Which do you prefer and why? I will preface the fact that I am referring to let's say a 7-10 day elk hunt.

I started out base camp hunting and recently switched to back packing in to set up a camp. I am still considering the pluses and minuses to each. If you hit the right spot at the right time you can not beat the pack in experience. It also affords you a unique and satisfying experience. Also if you get it right you can spend more time hunting and getting quality sleep because you are taking off hours of and miles of hiking in and out each day.

Base camp gives you more flexibility and affords you a more comfortable existence with a better camp. I was all gung ho to ho exclusivelyb back pack hunting until I read that Paul does all of his hunts from a base camp. That made me scrutinize how both styles could be blended to make a better experience for my elk hunting.

Obviously each have their places where one is much better than the other. Fortunately I have the base camp and back camps covered now so I can utilize which works best for any given situation. One idea that I had is to set up my base camp in a pretty central location. Then when I hike in to hunt I will carry 2 days worth of food with sleeping bag, hammock, tarp and stove. For water I will rely on what is in my pack and a water purfier. The key will be getting the pack to a manageable weight and size for day hunting. Probably 15 lbs would be nice. If I can do that it would give me the option to bivy out overnight if I am into elk or head to base camp and start anew the next day in a new area.

[Indian Summer]

you can not beat the pack in experience. It also affords you a unique and satisfying experience. Also if you get it right you can spend more time hunting and getting quality sleep because you are taking off hours of and miles of hiking in and out each day.

No doubt there are places where packing in can pay off. But before you load up the kitchen sink and go there you need to find it first. You already mentioned one main reason to pack in: The experience. Nothing wrong with that. I love it as much as anyone else. But I disagree with the second statement. You can easily lose two days of hunting getting a pack in camp in & out whereas you can just throw one up at the truck and use all of your time and energy to hunt.

I do all of my hunting from a base camp too. Regardless of where you camp you have to be warm dry and comfortable. Torturing yourself is no way to stay at the top of your game and hope to kill elk. You need sleep and dry clothes. My best answer would be to base camp. Hunt the area hard and work your way further as time goes by. Then if you end up in an area that has elk but is taking you two hours to get to and back from every day AND you found a suitable spot there to camp then consider bringing plan B into play. Remember you can't camp on top of your elk so you should be looking at a half hour or 45 minutes of hiking every morning anyway.

As with any answer on here this can vary by area. I've heard of places where it's so crowded you have to pack in because no sane elk would supposedly be within 5 miles of a road. I guess that's different but... I wouldn't be asking about the kind of camp to use in a place like that... I'd be looking for a new place to hunt for starters.

[Swede]

I hunt exclusively out of a base camp. Another thing to consider is packing out your elk. If I am so far back in somewhere that I need to spike camp, I would be just that much farther from getting my elk out. Indian Summer, are your fat lazy mules available, or are you still doing all the packing for them?

[Olydog09]

you can not beat the pack in experience. It also affords you a unique and satisfying experience. Also if you get it right you can spend more time hunting and getting quality sleep because you are taking off hours of and miles of hiking in and out each day.

No doubt there are places where packing in can pay off. But before you load up the kitchen sink and go there you need to find it first. You already mentioned one main reason to pack in: The experience. Nothing wrong with that. I love it as much as anyone else. [b]But I disagree with the second statement. You can easily lose two days of hunting getting a pack in camp in & out whereas you can just throw one up at the truck and use all of your time and energy to hunt. [/b]

I do all of my hunting from a base camp too. Regardless of where you camp you have to be warm dry and comfortable. Torturing yourself is no way to stay at the top of your game and hope to kill elk. You need sleep and dry clothes. My best answer would be to base camp. Hunt the area hard and work your way further as time goes by. Then if you end up in an area that has elk but is taking you two hours to get to and back from every day AND you found a suitable spot there to camp then consider bringing plan B into play. Remember you can't camp on top of your elk so you should be looking at a half hour or 45 minutes of hiking every morning anyway.

As with any answer on here this can vary by area. I've heard of places where it's so crowded you have to pack in because no sane elk would supposedly be within 5 miles of a road. I guess that's different but... I wouldn't be asking about the kind of camp to use in a place like that... I'd be looking for a new place to hunt for starters.

I had a spot a 2 years ago that was dynamite. A series of secluded wallows that had 3 bulls bugling and fighting that was a 3 mile hike with up and down sections going both ways. The bulls stayed in that same general. My partner and I would get up 2 hours before dark to hike in to get there before light. We would stay all day and then hike out after dark. We were burning time and calories that we didnt need to. The next year we hiked in with a pack in camp and stayed a ridge and half away. We saved a lot of wear on the boots and got more sleep by not hiking the full way in and out each day and it made for a much better experience.

[Indian Summer]

Yep. definitely times and places where it can payoff. If the walk isn't difficult you can cover 3 miles in an hour though. If the weather is decent you don't need that much to pull it off either but you said a 7-10 day hunt. There's no way your getting enough in there to live comfortable for that long in one trip. So somewhere down the line you'll need to make the hike back out to resupply which means downtime. Then... when you get to the end of the trip you have to weight out: Can we kill an elk during the 11th hour and get it out along with the camp... or do we need to hunt back toward the truck... or pull camp a day or 2 early and hunt from the truck knowing that there will be no work other than getting the elk out which can mean more downtime. Everything is a trade off of some sort. You don't just waltz into the woods for 10 days without investing time on both ends of the hunt and maybe in the middle that don't come into play when hunting from a base camp.

[BrentLaBere]

Adventure -I cant help myself, I get excited thinking about packing back into a road less area and having a gritty camp......minimal clothes, food just to get buy. Awesome . I was going to put that part up in the thread about "what lures you to elk hunting". I have read how others, especially IS, about how they just love the mountains. Its how I have always felt so the experience of camping "off the grid" just excites me. And now we are throwing in bugling bulls and I am going crazy....ask my girl friend.

I do like the idea of a combination. Parking at the trail head and setting a base camp. Dry clothes, coolers with ice for game and extra food. I guess whatever someone would need in case of weather, being tired or any other thing that may come up and a place to re group. Then head back into the back country and hunt hard. Last few days, with minimal time, hunt back to the truck and enjoy the last few days hunting in more comfort. I did this last year but still had my small tent and less supplies at the truck. I was able to get to know the area pretty well so I feel I need to incorporate this into my game plan. If there were a lot of people heading where I went I wouldn't do it. I was reading about the Colorado guys that hike in to have more competition.....I go where I did because I wanted to see open country and no people. I found that and cant wait to go back. Icing on the cake is there are elk there too.

[Indian Summer]

Adventure -I cant help myself, I get excited thinking about packing back into a road less area and having a gritty camp.......

Now THAT is a good reason to backpack in! Not always for the hunting but for the experience. There's no debating the fun of that.

[Broken arrow]

When I decided to head west. It wasn't about camping it was the adventure of being in the wilderness. I love the solitude having minimal gear. I have never felt more alive. Same reason I only bow hunt now. Maybe I was born 100 years to late?

[Indian Summer]

You guys make me feel old. I'm all about the feeling of being where rarely a man has stepped. Looking at me feet and wondering if the last person to set foot there was a native American 200 years ago. But I guess I'll have to admit that I did that so much that it's not the same. I spent 13 years living up there from August to Thanksgiving and then lion hunting until Christmas. That's 100+ days a year for over a decade. No question I still love camping. No doubt I live for the mountains. But when I go hunting, as Swede reminded me not so long ago... the number one goal is to kill an elk. If I thought packing in would increase my chances of accomplishing that then I'd do it in a heartbeat. But at this stage of the game and in the places I hunt that isn't necessarily true. I can consistently find elk from my base camps. In Wyoming I do cover more ground than in Montana but I use horses there. If I didn't use them I can think of a few places where I might camp. But I do like the flexibility of being able to make minor or even major relocations. This year in Wyoming I'll hunt one area for about 3 days. Then I'll move about 25 miles and hunt a different area for another 3 days. Then if I haven't gotten the job done I'll move 70 miles to a 3rd area. I could never do that if my camps were packed in. If I had more time I might do it for the adventure. But I don't. When my time is limited it's back to the same narrow minded focus which is dead bulls. So I quit making decisions based on the fact that I would loved to have lived in the days of Jeremiah Johnson. Let's not forget... the only reason guys like him went where they did was because everything else was trapped out.

I think the other factor is that I hunt both bow and gun seasons. Guys who hunt only in September can get away with sleeping under the stars and enjoying the minimalist lifestyle. You wouldn't call that fun or productive at 10,000 feet in mid November. So it's probably true to a degree that my ways of going about things are based on the same 4 season train of thought. It's nice to have thought that way even in September when it rains for days on end or snows a wet slushy 4 or 6 inches of slop.

[stringunner]

Base camp, works best for the area I hunt. I'm not opposed to packing in and hope to experience it someday, but for now in my area, base camp it is.

Swede, if Indian Summer's mules can't get it done for you, that would be a long haul in the trailer for them...I plan to have some just a stone throws away from your camp that you are welcome too, but then that would probably mean me helping which means you might want to blind fold me so I don't find another one of your spots! .