The Hunt Isn't Over Until the Last Quarter Hits the Truck

Quick answer: Use a frame pack with a load shelf, breathable synthetic game bags, and loads you can carry downhill without wincing. More trips at a lighter weight beat one hero trip that blows out a knee and leaves meat on the mountain overnight.

The bull goes down at 2:40 in the afternoon. He's 3.2 miles and 1,400 vertical feet from the truck, the sun's still on the slope, and the easy part of your season just ended.

Most hunters spend eleven months thinking about the shot and about eleven minutes thinking about this. That's backward. A mature bull's hindquarter on the bone can easily run 70 pounds or more, and you've got two of them, plus two front quarters, backstraps, tenderloins and neck meat. The pack-out decides whether that animal ends up in your freezer tasting the way it should. It also decides whether you finish the season on two good knees.

The first decision happens at the animal

Before you cut anything, read your state's regulations again. Some states require evidence of sex to stay naturally attached to a quarter. Some require all edible meat to leave the field before the head and antlers do. Wanton waste laws are real, and "it was too far" isn't a defense. If you're unsure, the regs pamphlet and your state wildlife agency are the authority, not the guy at the trailhead.

Then decide: bone-in or boned out.

Boned out takes a real chunk of weight off every load, and on a long, steep haul that's the difference between four trips and six. The gutless method lets you take the quarters, backstraps and neck meat off one side, flip him, and do the other side without ever opening the body cavity.

Bone-in has a case too. Less exposed surface means less to get dirty and less to dry out, and a hindquarter on the bone hangs and handles cleanly. If the truck's close and the terrain's gentle, keeping the bone in is a perfectly sensible call.

For deer, the math is kinder. A whitetail or mule deer often comes out boned in one load, or quartered in two. Elk is a different job entirely. Plan it like one.

Game bags are about air

The enemy isn't weight. It's heat. Meat spoils from the inside when body heat can't escape, which is why the hide comes off fast and the quarters go into breathable bags, never plastic. A contractor trash bag feels tidy and works like an oven.

Get synthetic bags that let air move and keep flies off. Hang the bagged meat in shade, off the ground, where a breeze can reach it. Within a few hours you'll get a dry outer crust that protects what's underneath. Leave them stacked in a pile in the sun and you'll lose the inside of a hindquarter before you've made trip two.

One annoying detail the instructions leave out: label your bags or use different colors. At dusk, on trip four, you won't remember which one holds the tenderloins.

The frame does the work if you load it right

A daypack can't carry a quarter. It'll try, and then the shoulder straps will dig into your collarbones until your hands go numb. You want a real frame with a stiff stay and a hip belt built to carry weight.

The feature that matters most is a load shelf, sometimes called a meat shelf: a space between the frame and the pack bag where the meat rides against the frame, held tight by the bag over the top. Load it this way:

• Meat goes tight against the frame, as close to your spine as it'll sit.
• Heaviest part high, roughly between your shoulder blades. Low and loose pulls you backward on every step.
• Cinch every compression strap until nothing shifts when you twist.
• Hip belt sits on your hip bones, not your waist. Snug it first, then shoulders, then load lifters.

If the pack sways when you shrug, stop and fix it now. A load that shifts on flat ground will throw you on a sidehill.

Pace it like a job

This is where good hunters get hurt. The adrenaline's still running, the first load feels fine, and the guy decides he'll take a hindquarter and his rifle and his whole kit in one go. He makes it a mile. Then the downhill starts.

Downhill is where the damage happens. Your quads are braking every step, your knees take the impact, and fatigue turns a loose rock into a twisted ankle. Carry trekking poles. Use them on every descent. Shorten your stride on steep ground and use a rest step going up: lock the back leg for a beat, let the bone carry the weight, then step.

Plan trips before you start. Two hunters on a bull might get the quarters out in two trips each, then come back for backstraps, neck meat and the head. Solo, a bull a few miles in can turn into a two-day job. Accept that early and you'll make better decisions.

Some rules that hold:

• First trip, carry the best meat. Backstraps and tenderloins come out first. If weather or a bear changes your plans, you've secured the most valuable cuts.
• Drink and eat before every load, not after you feel it.
• Don't haul in the dark on steep ground unless you know the trail cold. A headlamp shows you the next step, not the drop beside it.
• Drop a waypoint at the kill site and track your route out. Coming back to the same spot through dark timber is harder than it sounds.

Keep the ten essentials on you for every trip, including the third one, when you're tired and tempted to strip down. And watch the sky. A front rolling in on a multi-trip pack-out is exactly the situation the weather that kills hikers covers.

Bear country changes the order

In grizzly country, the carcass is a dinner bell. Move bagged meat well away from the gut pile, at least a hundred yards, somewhere you can see from a distance as you come back. Upwind of the carcass is better. Hang it if you can.

When you return, stop short and glass the meat and the carcass before walking in. Talk loudly. Carry bear spray where you can reach it with the pack on, not clipped inside a pocket. If a bear has claimed the carcass, it's his. No hindquarter is worth an argument with a grizzly, and the regs in most bear states give you a way to report it.

Lawfully carrying a handgun for defense in bear country is your right and plenty of experienced hunters do it. Train with it before the season, under a loaded pack, because a draw you've only practiced in a T-shirt at the range will feel very different with a frame on your back.

What I'd buy, what I'd skip

Buy:

• A frame pack built for hauling meat. The Stone Glacier Krux frame, the Mystery Ranch Metcalf, the Exo Mountain Gear K3 and Kifaru's frames are all built around carrying real weight with a load shelf. Fit beats brand here. Try it on loaded.
• Synthetic, reusable game bags from Caribou Gear or TAG Bags. Wash them, dry them, use them for years.
• Trekking poles. Cheap ones beat no poles.
• A small knife with replaceable blades, plus a backup.

Skip:

• Thin cotton bags that tear on the first branch.
• Any plastic bag for transport from the field.
• Your daypack with "it'll be fine" energy.

One concession: an old external-frame pack from a garage sale will carry a quarter better than most modern daypacks. If that's what you've got, use it. It worked for a generation of elk hunters.

Back at the truck, have coolers and ice waiting, or a plan to get meat cold fast. If your rig's set up right, your truck is already an overland rig and can stage this whole operation.

Leave the mountain cleaner than you found it

The carcass stays. That's part of the cycle, and every scavenger in the drainage will be glad of it. Everything else goes: flagging tape, wrappers, the nitrile gloves, the spent cartridge if you can find it. If somebody else left orange tape tied to a tree from last season, take that too.

You'll make one more trip than you wanted to. Make it anyway. The animal gave you everything on that slope, and the least you owe it's getting every pound home in good shape and leaving the hill like you were never there.