A Midnight Elk Packout in the Late October Wyoming Mud & Rain

Adam retrieving the Elk Head the following morning

By Emmett Shaul

At 6:44 p.m., with dinner in the oven, my phone rang. Connor was calling—Adam needed help packing out an elk he had just shot. Earlier in the season, Adam had helped me and Connor pack out Connor’s elk; this was us returning the favor. By 7:04 p.m., Connor was in the driveway. We had about twenty minutes to pull gear and get out the door.

I grabbed shoes, a headlamp, a backpacking pack, and a rain jacket. Connor, rushing over from coaching, brought boots, pants, two headlamps in case I’d forgotten mine, and a sweatshirt. Even in steady rain, neither of us got cold, but we were short on essentials for a night pack out in a downpour.

The drive to the trailhead took an hour and a half. It was fully dark when we left my apartment, overcast enough that the whole pack out ran under headlamps. Rain started the moment our boots hit dirt and the trail turned to grease. Every uphill step slid back a half step; mud caked on, adding weight and making each stride awkward. My shell kept most of the weather off; Connor managed in the sweatshirt.

About half a mile down the trail, we met Adam coming out with his first load of meat, a hind quarter weighing roughly 60 pounds. We linked up, turned around, and headed back up toward the rest. The rain kept coming, the mud got worse, and progress slowed to a crawl. We hit three river crossings and looked for spots where we could jump across to keep what dryness we had; with that much rain, we should’ve just walked straight through and shed the mud early. A mile in, Connor’s headlamp died. Twenty minutes later his backup quit as well—neither had been checked for battery life before we left—so from then on he moved by the pool of Adam’s and my light.

The elk lay roughly 900 yards uphill off the main trail. From the trailhead to the carcass was 2.04 miles with a slight overall incline and a few steep pitches. On those steeps the footing never set; every step put us off balance and sliding backward. We picked lines using rocks, branches, and brush to find grip. Given the rain and mud, it took about an hour and a half to reach the elk. We loaded the meat and started down. I took the hind quarter, about 60 pounds; Adam and Connor each packed a front quarter, roughly 40 apiece.

We dreaded the descent—less for the weight than for what was underfoot: steep grade and slick mud. The initial sidehill was the worst; I fell three times in that first stretch. Back on the main trail, every step drifted a few inches and demanded a correction. The challenge wasn’t the pack weight; it was staying on my feet. My hips and lower legs worked without a break to keep me stabilized and aligned over each step as my feet slid in the mud.

As the grade steepened again, the footing proved a little less chaotic than it felt moving uphill—the mud caked on our soles shortened most slides to a couple of inches before they stopped. Seeing the next step became the bigger issue. My breath kept blooming into my headlamp and blanking the trail, so I angled my exhales down and to the side to keep the beam clear. On the way out we quit trying to jump the crossings; our feet were soaked anyway, and the water rinsed the mud.

We reached the vehicles at 12:50 a.m., drained. It took 2 hours and 54 minutes to cover 4 miles.

I have always enjoyed these types of suffer fests—the shared grind that becomes the memories you keep. We laughed at bad jokes about our misery as we moved through rain and mud, slipping here and there, tired the whole way.

When a friend asks for help, you help. Connor and I, lulled by the notion of “only” two miles, were quick to depart. We skimmed the checklist; Connor skipped a rain shell on a friendly forecast; headlamps were packed but the batteries were spent; and I’d left with almost no food and no water. It didn’t stop us, but it made everything slower and sloppier than it needed to be.

The next morning I woke around 7 a.m., tired but not as sore as I expected. Given how much my hips worked to stay stable on the muddy steps, I figured they’d be sore; they weren’t. I’m not a hunter, but I like the training that comes with a pack out—loaded hiking and time in the hills are rewarding on their own. It didn’t change my plans for next year; I’m more drawn to hiking and camping than hunting. A full freezer is appealing, but I don’t have the storage, and the interest isn’t there.