The Current Gear List: Part 1

This blog will simply be all of the pieces of equipment that make it into the back country with me and the pieces that I intend to buy in the near future.  Some has been well tested and some has not.  There will also be a section what has been used in the past.

It will truthfully take several writing sessions to get all of the equipment that ends up in the pack for a trip to the back-country.  So bear with me as I add pieces and pictures.

I would also love to hear what pieces of equipment are worth trying.  If there any questions on any particular item feel free to ask.

Current Pack:
Kifaru Longhunter Guide on an EMR frame.
Mystery Ranch Daypack Lid
Kifaru Cargo Panel
Kifaru E&E
2 Medium pods
Molle Express will serve as day pack when necessary.

Past:
Badlands 2800-Used for 2 seasons and broke it twice.
Black's Creek Mossback Bounty Hunter-Wasn't tall enough for me but was capable of carrying plenty of weight. 135lbs was the heaviest I ever did.

Future:
Kifaru Duplex Timberline 3 bag

Footwear:
Cabela's Meindl Perfekt 400 gram insulation-For the cold hunts.
Cabela's Meindl Alaska Hunter uninsulated-For the not so cold hunts and summer backpacking trips.

Past:
Danner Pronghorn 1000 gram- Loved these boots, but love can't repair leather.

Future:
Hanwags, Kenetrek

Shelter:
Titanium Goat Vertex 5

Past:
Ledge Recluse-Shelter that served me well, especially in the summer.  Cold weather required an upgrade.

I have also used just about every other brand of relatively cheap tent out there.

Future:
Seek Outside Back Country Shelter(Ended up with a SO 6)

Running Review: Cabela's Meindl Perfekt Boots

Last season, it finally happened, the faithful Danner Pronghorns of many years gave up the ghost.  They helped me conquer many trails, and probably some that were a little rougher than I could handle.  I bought the first pair in 2005, and replaced them once.

I have never had a pair of boots fit as well as this pair has, and it was going to take some work to find something that fit the bill.  

In the years since this model of boot was first purchased some changes had been made even though the Pronghorn classic is still around.  I didn't feel like the changes that had been made to the boot were what was going to do the trick anymore.  When fitting them the heel cup wasn't comfortable, and the width just wasn't what I was looking for.

To be 100% honest the largest constraint on which boots I would buy was what my budget would allow.  Under $300.00 was my starting point and I soon discovered that the chosen dollar figure would provide a limited but solid choice for the money.

A friend of mine had been using Meindl boots from Cabelas for a while and the recommend was positive.  The Perfekt model ended up in the shopping cart and on the way to my door.

Whenever new gear arrives on the front porch my behavior tends to change and its very similar to a small child at Christmas.  This piece of gear was no different and they were soon out of the box under thorough examination.

Please bear in mind as you read that the pictures of the boots are now from a season of use.  If you are wanting an indicator of how well the boots held up, this is your thread.  These boots likely saw close to 100 miles this past hunting seasons in terrain from rock-slides to open fields and everything in between.

First impressions were good, and the initial walk around the neighborhood was also a strong indicator that a replacement had been found.  The comfort level I desired was there, as well as a proper fit.

One thing that must be noted is that I am a size 13 in boots, and at this size the particular model I purchased comes with a different sole and rand.  My model actually has a 1 inch rubber rand to protect the sides of the boot.  For reference the boots are probably very similar to what Meindl Canada models look like.  Personally I felt like it was an improvement as it would protect the toe and heel areas from my clutsy nature. I tend to trip over my own feet on a fairly regular basis.

Next, up was the waterproofing process. Olbenauf's was shown in the video on the Cabelas website and had made its way home from the local work wear store.  Per the prescription from the website the wax was applied and it aided in the break in process.  The wax and boots performed very well in wet to very wet conditions.  On their first outing rain poured for the last 2.5 hours of the trip and the boots never leaked.  When I woke that first morning the water that had been on the outside of the toes had frozen, but the interior was still dry other than normal foot sweat.

There are two complaints that can be made in my mind for the first piece of a running review: the lace loops and not enough give in a couple of spots on the foot-bed.

First the loops.  My buddy bought Kenetrek boots this year and a very cool feature is their flip up style lace loops.  This style allows wax to get underneath and all around the areas on the leather that has been punctured essentially breathing life into them for a longer period of time.  Meindl does not employ this type of system but would be wise to do so.  If enough wax does not make around this area on the leather, eventually I could be pulling my laces tight and the leather could break.   Keep in mind that it would require a lot of hard use, and very little conditioning for this to happen.

You can see from the picture that I have purposely rubbed plenty of wax around the loops to make sure that  the necessary oils make it into the proper areas.

The Perfekt foot-beds are often bragged about, but my experience with them held a little to be desired.  I am going to upgrade before this fall to some Lathrop and Sons custom foot-beds to up the the comfort level.  The Perfekt's beds weren't bad by any stretch, but with the way God designed me there tends to be a hard spot on the balls of feet.

After one full season in these boots and number two well on it's way expect more updates.  Hope you enjoyed the read.

Striking the Balance

I recently spent a couple weeks in Africa and honestly loved just about every minute of it.  I wasn't there for hunting as what this blog has been purposed for, but I was there to spend time with Orphans.    Some of my hunting gear came along, in fact it was a testing ground for much of the new stuff that had been acquired.

The Molle Express from Kifaru was my carry on of choice and it served that purpose well.  We met our Visiting Orphans team in DC after a flight out from Salt Lake City before making the 14 hour flight the next day Addis Abeba, Ethiopia.  Our luggage had been checked all of the way to Rwanda and wouldn't do us much good at the airport.  So the Mollex was loaded up with my computer, clothes for 2 days, all the pertinent paperwork, and books as well as toiletries and legal first aid.

 

It must also be mentioned that to fit all of this in a Mollex it was necessary to attach an E&E and Claymore pouch.  Inside for organization purposes the clothing material was stuffed in a medium pod.   This proved to be more than enough space and to make the bag fit the necessary requirements for carry on cinching down was not a problem.

The flights and lay overs all went smoothly, and the gear performed exactly as planned.  First Aid as well as all of the stuff that was necessary to come along to all of the places we were spending time with Orphans made in intact.  With Nite Ize clips my bag stayed in relative security from pick pockets and truthfully I don't know if it every was challenged in that regard.

The plan is for this piece of gear to serve as an Every Day Carry for computer and such, and also function as my carry on for future trips.   I went a little more expensive because I knew Kifaru could handle the abuse and if it didn't they would do their best to fix it as soon as i got it to them.

The balance that this blog is about is, "How do I find that balance of where I would like to spend my money and where it can go to make a difference in the lives of those who can't speak for themselves?"  The book of James has challenged me on many occasions with these principles and I am finding that honestly I am going to have to do some extra work to support my habits as well as areas that I have been challenged to minister in.

My future bride and I have also talked about the possibility of adoption.  We don't know if it will be foreign adoption or here in the United States but regardless expensive.  There are ways of fundraising for these things and it is very likely that they will be employed when its time.  Regardless of that fact we live in relative certainty that we may have to give up some creature comforts to be a part of these children's lives.  For me this may mean some new gear will be foregone.

A young man at an Orphanage called Noel in Gisenyi Rwanda particularly challenged me.  He has dreams far beyond what society seems to have dealt him as an orphan and a desire to move beyond that title.  He recently talked to me on Facebook asking if I could possibly send him some automotive manuals.  His desire is to someday be a mechanic and has been given the opportunity to study that trade.

A simple sacrifice in my life of a little extra time spent working could make the difference in one person's life for the entirety of their career.  I currently have been given some PDF journals that could be on their way to him in May detailing auto mechanics but if that won't work I will need to spend $50.00 or so to send him some books.  Fifty dollars is what it would cost me roughly to fund a couple of small pieces of gear for new Kifaru stuff.

A little sacrifice on my part and I will be able to make a difference in the lives of people who will not be able to help themselves.  Sometimes my gear is going to have to wait, or take a little bit more saving before it can come home.  

The reality is though, the lives of people matter.  No matter what I refuse to miss the sanctity of life and will do my best to find a balance between needs, wants, and sacrifices I can make for voices that cannot be heard.

2011 Mulie: Part 3

Easter season in the life of a youth minister often comes with the cost of much time spent in preparation for services and events surround The Lord's Day.  Now I have several weeks before my next major event and hope to finally get this story finished.

Sleep that night came surprisingly easy for a night that normally doesn't allow for much.  The pad was more comfortable than normal and the sleeping bag warm enough to help sleep come when a 5 mile hike and 3000 feet of elevation have been climbed.

The alarm went off as was planned but there was noise above our tent from a group of hunters who had camped about a 1000 feet below us and decided the trek up the side of the hill was worth it in the dark.  We quickly continued finished getting ready and hurried out of the door hoping that the deer we had found the night before hadn't been spotted by the other hunters.

In an attempt to keep our shapes from being spotted on the horizon we stayed behind a group of trees and quickly got our spotting scopes set up.  We found several deer quickly but disappointment quickly set in when we didn't find the buck from the night before.  It only got worse as we heard shots come from the direction the other hunters had gone and it was easily conceivable that the buck we had found had found their crosshairs.

After several minutes sitting in the cold and hoping our buck wasn't the one they had killed the grey ghost I had found the night before stepped out from the trees.  He met the standards I had set earlier in the summer and a stalk wasn't even necessary because he was under 300 yards and standing broadside.

My desire now is to make up some story and say that I hit him with the first shot but I didn't, it was a miss.  At which point he took off and left me scratching my head on what I did wrong.  We decided our best bet was to head down and make sure it was a clean miss and slowly head the same direction that he went.

There was no blood as we had expected and pursuit was tough on the frozen ground after the rain the day before.  Tracks were tough to discern but soon we spotted him and his partner working their way up the next drainage about 250 yards away.  I also wish I could say this shot was clean as well, but with his quartering angle I hit him a further back than I would have preferred.  He headed down the hill and settled beneath a large pine, but far enough away that I couldn't finish him.

We worked our way closer and I finished the job that should have been done with the first shot.  To date he is my best mule deer and I hope to continue to improve and get better with every season.  This hunt will be tough to top, but in the three days we stayed in mountains after my kill 3 deer that were much larger were located.  There is hope for next season.......

Cutting Weight- The Journey Here

I am taking a break  from the mule deer story to talk about my trip in general to become a more efficient  backpacker.  It's a learning process to say the least, and there are constantly new things to be taken in.  My hope is that I never get to the point where I feel like I don't have things to learn.  If I ever get to that point perhaps its time to hang up the boots and take up something else.

The trails that have been traveled since my first trip at 10 years old have provided me with experience, and the lessons learned have made me want the backcountry more and more.    I  had a 40lb pack frame that was a  borrowed from a local pawn shop that trip, colored in bright orange.  For 1994 it may not have been bad, but the memory even then was that it wasn't the most comfortable thing to wear.

Life has constantly been intertwined with my faith, and life in the church.  This trip was a youth group trip that my Dad was leading, and even though I was too young, Dad snuck me along.  Every person was loaded to the hilt with different cans of soup, water and other things that I simply look at and laugh now.  Even with the heavy load my bright orange pack was the first to arrive at our designated lake,

Several youth group trips later and I was the proud owner of my first Kelty frame pack when Santa proved to be very generous.  It was a sweet pack in my mind and served it's purpose very well all the way until I graduated from High School.  The Blue bag on the frame was removed several times and different variations were tried to make it more efficient.  In the end the pack proved capable, and kept me wanting to pack in farther and farther.

College proved to be a time where my hunting and backpacking were limited because lets face it, central Texas is not a great place to pursue those things.  Breaks from school were spent fishing in my home state, but often they fell on times of year when packing in wasn't an option and the resources for winter camping weren't there.  I read Mike Eastman's and David Long's books to pass some of those breaks, and it kept the motivation factor high.

Two trips in college home during Elk season proved to not be enough to satisfy the desire to be in the woods and graduation found me loaded and ready to be back in the Mountain West.  My first home after college was within a couple of hours of the mountains again and it was on.

One major problem, the stuff I was carrying in weighed too much, and again proved I had much to learn.  For this to change several mentalities needed to change.  The first and most important would be the perception of what is necessary to take on a backpack hunt.  The next is that heavy duty, i.e. heavy was always the best way to go.  I wasn't aware that there is such as thing as well built light stuff

A major culprit of excess weight was the Black's Creek Bounty Hunter, Mossback edition.  The pack was purchased fairly impulsively in 2007 to really start staying in for long periods of time.  I proudly brought all 12lbs of it home and started to put together all of the stuff I would need for the coming trip.   The pack seemed heavy duty and would eventually bring mentality number one to the forefront.

The first season consisted of packing in simply a tarp and my down sleeping bag  for shelter and I suppose it worked ok.  Early season archery it wasn't bad, but because it never got terribly cold I was never miserable without a pad.  It is somewhat amazing to me that I was never more miserable than I was, it honestly could have been worse.  I had the weight idea right in this "system," but comfort was not of much value.  Minimalist, yes, comfortable no.

By 2009 an Alps Mountaineering pad had found its way into my supply and I dug up an old tent from my parents shed.  Dad has a habit of buying every tent he sees when he goes to garage sales and it played into my favor.  The first tent was not that heavy, and truthfully served me well for a two seasons, but I needed an upgrade.  Ledge Recluse was an upgrade for a season but was still not as efficient for the later elk hunts that I typically go on.

Another area that needed an upgrade was the food department.  MRE's just don't cut it anymore.  Number one they are just plain too heavy.  Number two they are just not very good.  There are tricks out there to make them better, but truthfully it's still not very good.  Mountain Houses have become a staple of my back-country cuisine and will be for many years to come.  An even better upgrade that I am working through recipes is making my own freeze dried food, I am hoping the wife will like me using her kitchen for such adventures....

The Black's Creek needed to go, first and foremost it didn't fit correctly. Next comes the whopping 12lbs that are carried in the pack alone.  An upgrade to a Kifaru Longhunter Guide has now been completed and the pack weight has been cut in half, and the pack is big enough to produce shoulder lift.  Did I mention that it's fit is actually comfortable?

The pad has now been upgraded to a NeoAir by Thermarest and I can't complain in the least bit.  This season will prove it out as a viable pad and the hope is that many comfortable nights will be spent on it.

A TiGoat Vertex 5 now comes with me on solo and double trips and will serve that purpose quite well I believe.   Plenty of space for one, a little tight for 2, but doable, all in all a solid upgrade for a reasonable price.

More upgrades are coming, and this blog will be the place that I put my thoughts down on the value of each piece of equipment.

2011 Mulie: Part 2

The month before was spent looking over maps and finishing plans for where exactly opening day would be spent.   This was an early season hunt and the hardest part would be some of the competition from other hunters.  We only saw one other hunter on the way in during the scouting trip but saw a pack train on the way out.    This was discouraging in one way but encouraging in another that bad areas don't usually get hunted.  The country held deer, we knew it, but apparently many others did as well.

Preparation came and went, and it was time for the real pack in.  Rifles sighted in, packs ready, counting ounces, going over the list, making sure everything functions perfectly.  All the little things that are necessary before boots can even touch the ground.  This in and of itself can be a daunting process, but helps take the mind off of the the wait for the hunt.

The little traveled road we had come in on a month before seemed to have a camp at just about every possible corner.  My heart sank knowing that the pressure on the deer would soon force them into the holes that were much harder to find and chances would be tougher to come by.  So goes hunting.

As we left what felt like a parking lot the day before the opener our spirits had sank quite a bit.   It shouldn't have surprised us though, with modern technology and the availability of maps that it is quite a bit easier to find a good spot than it was 20 years ago.

When we left the relatively flat river bottom to our planned spot the weather turned for the worst and the typical evening shower that so often hits the high country came. This forced us to stop and put on the rain gear and it was time to fill up the extra water bladders. This extra water would get us through the evening and the final ascent up the last 1000 feet in elevation.

 The start of that ascent brough the surprise that we had not only found a group of other hunters, but also stumbled on some deer they intended to put a stalk on in the morning.   One of the deer was easily one of the biggest spotted the entire trip.  We never saw that deer again.

This ascent proved to be the toughest part of our hike and being soaked did not help in the least.  This section of real estate cliffs out in every area but one.  The only saddle in the entire area proved to be where we crested the hill and would even make camp.

My partner had started to feel sick on the way up, and it was likely due to dehydration.  Camp, a mountain house, warm sleeping bag some heat from the stove were a welcome relief for him.  I on the other hand was ready to look over the area and see what I could from our vantage point.

Much to my surpise, 300 yards below camp  was a buck that met my standards.  I couldn't believe that I had been able to find one that easily, in an area that we couldn't see any other people camped.  Travis soon left the comforts of camp to look at the buck with me and see what had me so excited.

After about a half hour of looking over a few more bucks that had made their presence known, we both decided that it was time for bed.  I spread my pad and sleeping bag out thinking it was pretty pointless considering how little sleeping would actually be done.  The reality was that I was pretty tired and it was time to get some rest, and I would have to leave the buck where he bedded down until the morning anyway.

2011's High Country Mulie: Part 1

The story behind my buck from this past season actually starts on September 26th 2010.   Dad, Justin, and myself had decided to try a new area for a pack in trip for elk.  Until that moment I ate, slept, and  breathed with the sound of elk bugles in the fall, bow in hand.

2010 had been a particularly frustrating season in pursuit of the wapiti.  Blown stalk, after blown stalk.  Wind change after wind change.  Not filling my cow tag because in the rain I had put my rangefinder in my pocket, and was too noisy to get out 20 yards from the elk.  I guessed 30, and you guessed it, right over her back.   Entering the pack in, there was hope for a change of luck, but it came in the form of grey ghosts of the high country.

The evening of the 26th didn't produce any monster bulls, but it put me in some new country that held some good deer.    No elk were in store with a bow that year but much had been learned, including where I would be spending some time chasing Mulies when it opened the first week of October.

On the 6th of October I found myself back in the same country, solo, with a rifle.  The back story is that two of my hunting partners had killed really good deer and I was just a little bit jealous.  Ok, really jealous.

The problem with this section of the back country is that the prime-time deer areas offer no real place to glass them before you are right on top of them and need to be ready to shoot.  There isn't much time for real observation of the deer, just an ok he's big enough moment.  I didn't want ground shrinkage, but the situation dictated that it was likely.

To make observation of deer even harder 6 inches of snow poured in on the first night as I slept in the truck at the trail head.  Hiking the 2.5 miles that morning in the residual fog from the snow fall, there couldn't have been harder conditions.   I blew two chances at bucks that I estimated to be over 160 B&C.

Frustration set in as I set up camp and the snow continued to fall.  Two blown chances at what would have been far and away my best deer to date.  A new challenge was starting, and I wanted a big deer.  I wanted better than what I had ever put on the ground before.

I never got to really leave that tent as the snow kept falling and the hunt slipped away, but I had my map and a plan for 2011 started taking shape.  5 separate locations started to take shape as places that could eliminate a few of the challenges that I had encountered that season.

All of them had limited access from trails, and weren't on the beaten paths. All of them offered places where glassing was possible for long distances, and they were different than the elk country I was used to.  They were higher, and often more rugged.  They all offered feeding areas that bucks prefer as well as places to bed.

The end of Summer 2011 brought about scouting season and several pack ins to the area my buddy and I had determined to be the best.  This hunting buddy is somewhat of a pro in my mind when it comes to big mule deer.  He has several on his wall that many would consider top notch trophies, and learned from some of the best in our area.  This was a chance to learn more, and a chance to grow as a deer hunter.

We quickly found that our area had some of the best hunting we could ask for.  2 days of glassing had produced several shooter bucks by my standards. All I had left was the wait.