Gearing Up For Elk Q's

[schulte]

back country

the pocket rocket from cabelas works awesome very compact, the fuel cannesters are a little bulky, doesn't take long to boil water for those mountain house packs.

 

[MinnesotaHunter]

I am one of those guys that can sleep just about anywhere, so I am not too picky when it comes to sleeping pads. For the last 10 years I have been using a self-inflating thermarest I bought down at Fort Benning, I am not sure what model it is. Over the last 10 years I have easily slept over 500 nights on it, and it is still getting the job done. If you have issues sleeping in the backcountry, try popping a couple Tylenol PMs before bed, it might do the trick for you.

I have an old Brunton gas stove and an MSR Pocket rocket. I primarily use the MSR, and haven't had any issues, the most extreme environment I have used it in was cooking in the single digits with pretty good wind at about 11,500, and it got the job done. It does burn a little gas, I would probably have gone with a Jetboil if I were to do it again. My old Brunton stove has seen better days and I have burned too much 3rd world diesel/kerosene/unleaded in it the last 10 years, that I am constantly having issues with it, so the MSR gets most of the work.

I use a katadyn gravity filter. It works pretty well, is light, and when you are sitting around camp you can get alot of water filtered at a time. I am not sure any filter system is going to work very well if it freezes, I would defer on that issue.

I only use a GPS when I am hunting in the thick timber to mark locations I want to come back to. I don't every leave the truck with out a map and compass. Invest the 20 bucks in a Suunto compass and good maps. This is the one I use: http://www.suunto.com/en-US/Products/Compasses/Suunto-A-30/Suunto-A-30-L-IN/?categoryId=5. If you are going to be hunting broken BLM or the fringes of public, you might want to invest in one of the mapping GPS's like the Garmin 62s and get the Huntingmapsgps chip. If you navigate purely by GPS you will find you are going to be giving up and then regaining alot of altitude. In the mountains the quickest route is rarely in a straight line. Also make sure you know how to read Lat/long on your map, so you can reference your exact location from your GPS, alot of maps don't have it marked very clearly.

 

[GKimPrice]

there are a lot of good sleeping pads out there, the NEOS is tougher than you think but lightweight, the thicker the better though - don't know that much about stoves, whisperlite is a good one - I've used the Katadyne "base camp" I think it is, a bag that gravity feeds and it works a heck of a lot better than any pump I've been near - you won't like tyvek for a bivy at all, guarantee it, go with a self contained bedroll made from 10 oz marine canvas, lightweight/pliable/holds your bed plus all together - NOTHING makes a day longer than a crappy night's sleep - there is a guy on ebay that makes bedrolls and meatpacks that I finally bought from after watching for a long time, I should not have waited so long - very fair price and really good workmanship - I think he has his phone number sneaked into the auction description 503-367-9705 that's it - I have used a wiggy's bag for a lot of years now with high praise and no complaints - they aren't the lightest weight but darn good quality and they keep you WARM - I just yesterday sprung for a Garmin Dakota GPS due to the chips you can get that literally show who owns the land you are standing on, sad but necessary option these days I'm afraid