Sitka Gear Turkey Tool Belt

Can I Climb It?

asdew1880

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Sep 9, 2018
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Louisville, KY
Trying to get the most of my e-scouting and am wondering what the opinions are on "can I climb this?" (More like do you think you could climb it or is it possible to hike up on foot). Its about 1400 ft elevation gain over 1.3 miles of hiking.
1567014536202.png

A little further down the road:
1567014758575.png
 
What's starting elevation of hike and what are you at right now? That will probably impact you more than the routes.

My guess is not at all on route 1. Route 2 maybe if you have the lungs.
 
I'd entertain the first one in the daylight only and mostly cuz I like an adventure haha! Seems pretty damn steep less you have your 3d exaggerated on GE.

The second I'd definitely do but the first time would be in the daylight for sure
 
Both are possible, the first might have so actual climbing involved it's a bit hard to say. I would definitely scout the route first in the daylight. The second one just looks like a grunt but not technical.
 
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Is there a trail? If you want to get up there, and there isn't a trail, I would stay away from the bottom of the drainage, and bust up the nose of a ridge, or through some of the more open timber. You are way more likely to get cliffed out or stuck bushwhacking through some nastiness back in those draws.

As for the elevation, you know yourself better than I do, but it is possible. It just might take some time.
 
I did 800' over 1/3 mi. last year and it sucked. My 25 yr old son barely beat me back to camp, he wasn't to crazy about it either. We were going down into a canyon & would have had a hard decision to make if we found elk there.
 
The elevation is no problem. It's hard to discern impassible cliffs sometimes on GE. #2 probably has some really nasty shit in the bottom of that drainage, but it's hard to say. I'd probably shoot for #1 because I like to traverse ridges instead of draws.
 
Sure you could. The real question is should you? People can do lots of things they shouldn't .
 
Hard to say without seeing it firsthand. What about the ridge line to the left of #2 instead of the bottom. Bottoms tend to hold more moisture and in return have nasty thick cover. I wouldn't do it daily but if your going in for a few days or a week to bivy yeah maybe.
 
There’s a spot that I’ve been going to here in Colorado that is around 1250’ over 3/4 of a mile. It doesn’t look that bad on google earth or on a topo but sweet Jesus it’s an ass kicker. I think a problem that might arise in your first picture walking up the draw is how bad it will be washed out. It’s not very fun gaining that much elevation when you have to climb a car sized boulder every 10 feet. But you’ll never know unless you try. For what it’s worth I’d try and walk up both.
 
I would do both with a day pack and rifle secured so would not shift around...but the second route is preferable. I expect you could ride a horse up the second route.

I am not a fan of having to find hand holds to keeping moving up an incline nor an incline where you simply must keep churning your feet without stopping as the loose stuff under you will start sliding down the incline with you along for the ride. The most nerve-racking for me is rotten, older rock that you have to rub out of the way to get an anchor point and even then is hard to trust as are initially using that new hold to pull on. Lots of rotten rock on my goat hunt along the Continental Divide east of Aspen, CO. I actually was happy to walk the ridge then head down that evening using an avalanche chute full of large, teeter-tottering rock chunks that shifted and slid only a bit now and then.

I am a little jealous though as taking on the mountains is one way to test your abilities to come face to face with the power of Nature which we normally are buffered from by sleeping in building, driving up inclines in vehicles and having sidewalks for smooth walking. Add in some afternoon lightning strikes with rapidly falling temperatures along with some sleet, hail or heavy snow and will be quite memorable. If are in grizzly country then woo boy taken to the next level of insanity. Good luck on your adventure!
 
Another thing to think about is can you get back down with a pack full of meat on your back. Using hand holds to scale up a rock face without a full pack is a lot easier than going down with 80 additional pounds of meat on your back.

100 foot or so of parachute cord can be used to lower the pack at ledges. I can climb up 3x as fast as down if is almost sheer stuff so I always take that into account so do not end up losing light mid-trek down the nasty stuff.
 
We better see pictures from your trek.... only cuz now I’m extremely curious what it’s going to be like🤣😂

Oh and for maximum stability I’d have a Busch on each side of my pack. When you start to wobble the dynamic counterweight will help stabilize you, trust me, I am(was) a building structures engineer. Worst case you get in a bind and have to wait for help, at least you have something to drink🤣😂🤣
 
I can almost guarantee you will find it to be A LOT rougher and steeper than you see in the pic. Google earth seems to flatten images quite a bit. There are places we hunt that look very mild on Google but from actually hunting there I know it is extremely rough.
 
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