Bull Elk 2026Our first hunt — geared, fit, legal, and glassing the timber by first light.
Dates Oct 3–9, 2026Unit S. Slope · YellowstoneTag Any Bull · rifleCrew Tim · Kimble · Jackson · Austin
—days to the openerSaturday, October 3
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Days to opener
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Training week
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Gear claimed
4/4
Crew set
What counts as a good hunt. Most of us have never done this — that's the point. General-season public-land elk fill maybe one tag in six, so the win isn't a dead bull. It's showing up fit enough to hunt hard on day five, shooting straight from real field positions, reading the country, and making a clean, ethical effort as a crew that comes home safe and closer than it left. A filled tag is upside — and if a bull gives us the shot, we'll have earned it.
Everyone's in, tagged, and legal. All four of us are set for Oct 3–9 — the paperwork is done. Start Here is now the prep checklist: get your rifle zeroed, come to the Saturday rucks, and claim your gear.
This is a living page — bookmark it. It updates in place as we lock the August scout, confirm the crew, and get the weather forecast. Tap the nav above to move between sections.
Start Here · do this week
The crew is set and legal — now it is all prep
Crew's set and legal. All four of us hold our Oct 3–9 any-bull permits — Austin's licensed too. The clock now is prep, not paperwork: come to the Saturday rucks, get your rifle zeroed, and claim your gear below.
Crew locked — all four of us hunting done
Tim, Kimble, Jackson, and Austin are all in as hunters. Kimble's the one who's hunted before; the rest of us are first-timers, so we hunt in pairs and take the safety briefing seriously.
Everyone's tagged and legal — Austin included done
All four of us hold our Oct 3–9 any-bull permits. Austin finished the Trial Hunting path (online orientation + exam) and is licensed, so he's cleared to hunt alongside a certified partner (Tim, Jackson, or Kimble). Paperwork's done — just carry your tag + license in the field.
Hunter-ed & supervision — sorted done
Tim, Jackson, and Kimble are all hunter-ed certified, so we have qualified supervisors to spare and can split into two pairs. Austin's on the Trial path — now completed — and hunts under a certified partner.
Get a rifle you can actually shoot — and start shooting it all hunters
Bring a rifle that meets the criteria for killing elk, and put rounds through it now — get it zeroed with your hunting load in August. We confirm every rifle together at the group zero day (proposed the weekend of Sep 19); see Hunt → Shooting for the standard you must pass before you're cleared to shoot at an animal.
Start moving, and block your calendar everyone
The pack-out is the crux — see Train, and come to the Saturday rucks. Hold these dates: a scout weekend in late August, the group zero day (weekend of Sep 19), depart Fri Oct 2, hunt Oct 3–9.
Hunt · location, strategy & the shot
South Slope of the Uintas, Yellowstone country Region locked
We're hunting the Yellowstone River corridor off Forest Road 119 above Mountain Home — the heart of Utah's best any-bull ground. The catch: everyone with this tag knows it, and by our opener the elk have been pushed by a month of archery and muzzleloader seasons. So the game is escape terrain — get off the roads and hunt where pressured elk hide.
▶ How we'll hunt
Base camp on the road, day-hunt the timbered benches 1.5–3 miles in, glassing hard morning and evening. We split into pairs — but only one pair has the experienced hand (Kimble). The other pair hunts tighter and slower (see the shot rules below).
▶ The exact spots Scout
A, B, and C glassing zones are picked on the map and confirmed on the August scout. Nobody's hunted this ground, so the scout is what turns the map into a plan. Waypoints live in our shared OnX — open the shared waypoints here, then download offline maps before we go.
Region locked; the exact A/B/C spots get confirmed on the August scout. Hunt the band between the road hunters and the deep horse camps.
Three habits that fill more tags than any gear
1Be glassing by gray light. Leave camp about two hours before first light and be sitting on the knob at dawn. If you're still hiking in during shooting light, you're bumping every elk between the truck and the glass. This one habit matters most.
2Play the wind, always. At first light cold air sinks — approach feeding and bedding areas from below or across, never with the wind at your back. Elk live by their nose; one whiff and they're gone before you see them.
3Arrive a day early. We're going from valley air to sleeping at 8,000 ft and hunting at 10,000. A day to acclimate keeps day one from flattening someone. Hydrate hard, go easy on the first-night beers.
Shooting: you're cleared to shoot at an elk only if…
A wounded bull that runs into black timber at last light is a worse outcome than an unfilled tag. An ethical shot is a system — the conditions, your competence, and your cartridge all have to line up, and the weakest one sets the limit. So this is crew law, and it applies to everyone:
✓Zeroed rifle. Elk-legal caliber, and within two weeks of the hunt you've fired a confirmed group ~2 MOA or better, centered, with the exact ammo you'll carry (suppressed if you hunt suppressed).
✓Field-position proof. From a real position — tripod, pack, kneeling, not a bench — you put 3 of 3 in an 8-inch circle at your max range, on demand.
✓Under stress. You can do that after a short hike-in, building the position and firing within ~60–90 seconds with your heart rate up.
✓Kimble ranges and confirms the shot, and you commit out loud to passing anything marginal — too far, quartering-to, moving, unsupported, wind you can't call, last light.
Know your number — and honor it. Your number isn't a fixed distance you own — it's the range where the conditions, your proven competence, and your cartridge all hold up at once, so it moves, and it shrinks the instant wind, light, or angle turns. Proven shooters off a clean field position ≈ 300 yd.First-time shooters: 200 yards, hard cap — 150 if you can't prove 200. Past your number — or if any one of those factors is off — we stalk closer or we pass. No first-time-at-camp shots with an unproven rifle.
The zero day — nobody hunts an unconfirmed rifle
The standard above isn't self-certified — we prove it together. We'll hold a group range day where every hunter puts their actual hunting rifle and exact elk load on paper, confirms zero, and shoots the field-position check. It's also where the first-timers get real coaching before it counts for an animal.
▶ Proposed: weekend of Sep 19 lock it
About two weeks out — recent enough that the zero holds, with room to fix a problem (bad scope mount, won't group, wrong dope). We'll slot it around that week's ruck. Get an individual zero done in August first so this is confirmation, not troubleshooting — then a couple of cold-bore rounds the week we leave.
▶ What to bring & do
Confirm zero at 100, stretch to 200/300, then cold-bore first-round hits from field positions — tripod, pack, kneeling — out to your max. Pack 40+ rounds of your hunting load, your bipod/tripod, and the layers you'll actually shoot in.
Ranges near home: zero + 100/200/300 at Lee Kay (DWR range, SLC); field positions + steel to 400 on the BLM east of SR-73 past Five Mile Pass. Check utahfireinfo.gov for fire & shooting closures before any range trip.
If the shot isn't perfect: mark the exact spot the elk stood and where you last saw it on OnX, then back out and get Kimble. Give it time, take up the blood trail slowly, grid-search if it thins. Recovery is part of an ethical shot, not an afterthought.
Strategy · how we actually hunt
Beat the crowd, not the elk
There are elk here — the North and South Slopes together give up more than half of Utah's any-bull harvest. The problem isn't finding elk, it's the wall of orange near the roads. Everything below is built on one idea: get behind a terrain deterrent other hunters won't cross, be in position before light, and let the crowd push elk to you.
The one idea that fills tags. A Utah elk study found that during rifle season, elk pack into security cover roughly a mile or more from any road or ATV trail, wherever there's timber to hide in. Our plan — timbered benches 1.5–3 miles off FR 119 — sits comfortably inside that line. But distance alone isn't the trick: it's distance plus a deterrent — a steep pitch, a deadfall maze, a creek gorge — that makes a lazy hunter turn around. Elk can be a half-mile from the road if there's something ugly between them and it.
Where the elk are — Oct 3–9
▶ The phase: the rut's tail
Our week is the back end of the rut, not the late-October lull. Bulls are still with cows in the same country they rutted — the herd doesn't split up until later in the month. Bugling has dropped to sporadic, but it isn't off: a locator bugle or cow call at first light can still draw an answer. The oldest bulls are the first to peel away, slipping into secluded, higher, nastier pockets to rest and feed back up.
▶ The pattern: feed low, bed high
Elk feed at the edges of light — mountain parks, aspen pockets, old burns, whatever green is left — then ride the warming air uphill to bed by mid-morning in north-facing dark timber, high on the face, where they smell everything below and watch everything above. The money setup is feed right beside dark timber. Hunt the edge between the two.
Elevation band for the week: roughly 8,500–10,000 ft — camp sits near 8,000, the A-benches at 8,800–10,200. You picked the right shelf of the mountain.
The daily clock — and the wind that runs it
Thermals are the master variable: cold air sinks down the mountain overnight and through the morning, then reverses and rises once the sun heats the slope. Two rules fall out — keep your scent draining away from elk, and never commit during the swirly sunrise/sunset switch.
Time
What the elk do
Thermals
Your move
First light
Feeding in the open, drifting toward bed
Falling (downhill)
Glass & approach from below or across — scent sinks away beneath them
Mid-morning
Bedding in north-face timber, high on the slope
Switching → rising (~9–10 a.m., later on shaded faces)
Don't move during the switch. To work beds, get above them
Midday
Bedded, but standing to stretch and shift
Rising (uphill)
Still-hunt the dark timber above the beds at a crawl, wind in your face. Not nap time
Evening
Back on their feet, feeding into the parks
Falling again by dusk
Be on the feed edge early; sit below / downhill so scent drains off
Carry a wind checker and use it constantly — these tight drainages swirl, and a timber sneak with the wind at your back just means you hear elk crashing off.
Opening morning — let the crowd hunt for you
1Be above the first band of timber in the dark. Mark your route the night before and walk in silent. When the truck-and-ATV crowd bumps elk off the road corridor at shooting light, they push them uphill into the cover you're already sitting in.
2Sit the pinch. Saddles, benches notched into steep faces, the necked-down heads of tight drainages — the escape routes elk funnel through. Set up on the uphill side with a slight crosswind — wind as a steering wheel, not at your back.
3Don't quit at 9 a.m. Pressured elk keep moving all day as hunters wander around, so saddles, benches, and timber edges stay live. And weekdays after the opener empty out — the ones who keep showing up after the crowd goes home are the ones who fill tags.
Find them: glass like it's a job
The Uintas are heavily timbered, so you won't glass wide-open basins — you'll pick apart the small openings, park edges, and north-timber shade you can see, and slow-still-hunt the pockets you can't.
Put your binos on a tripod. Non-negotiable — it kills the shake, widens what you see, and lets you glass for hours instead of minutes. This alone finds more elk than anything else in your pack.
Don't look for an elk — look for a piece of one. A glint of antler, a patch of tan that doesn't belong, an ear flick, a shadow that shifts. Movement is what you'll catch first.
Grid it, slowly. Hold each chunk of hillside still for 20–30 seconds, overlap your passes, cover every face two to four times. Elk "materialize" the moment your eyes stop moving.
Sun at your back, never skylined. Sit in shadow with rock or brush behind you and glass the opposite slope. The first and last hour is when you'll see roughly three of every four animals — be on glass then, no matter what.
Close the distance
1Wind before everything. Move only when it's blowing from the elk to you; the instant it swings wrong, stop or back out. No stalk is worth burning the spot.
2Mark the target before you leave the glass. From the knob it's obvious; down in the timber it isn't. Photo the route, take a bearing, drop an OnX pin, and pick landmarks — a dead snag, a rock band — to steer by.
3Move on their eyes. Connect brush, rock, and folds so you're never exposed in their line of sight. Step only when heads are down or turned; freeze when one looks up. The closer you get, the slower you move — last hundred yards, boots off.
4Close only as far as you need. With a rifle you rarely need to break 100 yards — you need a solid rest, a calm animal, and a range inside your number. Don't force the last 50 yards and blow it; take the rest you've got.
Hunting as a pair
▶ Shooter + spotter
One shoots; one runs everything else — range, wind, watching the bull and the shooter, and calling the shot. The shooter's only job is to get on the animal and stay there until the spotter says send it. Agree your hand signals and radio calls before the hunt — clipped commands, not sentences ("wind, left-to-right, 250"). Rino-type GPS radios let you see each other's position across a basin.
▶ Pairs & safety
We split into two pairs — Kimble anchors the pair with the least experience. Settle who shoots first in the parking lot, not in the moment (first bull goes to whoever's never killed one). Non-negotiables: always know where your partner is, no shot anywhere near the line of fire, never a skylined animal, orange on, muzzle discipline. See Safety.
Weather: read it and adjust
▶ Warm & bluebird
The tough hand. Elk bed early and tight in high north timber, feed mostly at night, and midday movement dies. Hunt the edges of light hard, still-hunt the beds midday, and check water — in warm weather it's the one thing that still pulls them.
▶ Cold front / snow
The gift. A dropping barometer turns elk on — they feed harder, later into the morning and earlier into the afternoon, out in the open on south-facing slopes. A dusting won't move them far (it takes real snow), but the hours during and right after a front are the best of the week. A tan hide pops against snow, and it quiets your stalk.
When it goes sideways
Blew a stalk or bumped a herd? First read the bump. If they only heard or saw you, you're probably still in the game — a soft-bumped bunch often circles back and re-beds in the same area within an hour. If they winded you, that stalk is over; scent is game-over. Either way: back out quietly, slip off your track, and give it time. Don't start calling at elk that just busted you — they learn to tie elk sounds to danger and you poison the spot. And don't grind a place; pressured elk go silent, turn nocturnal, and bury themselves in the nastiest deadfall on the mountain — which is exactly where they'll be when the easy-access crowd finally gives up.
The first-timer's edge
None of us but Kimble has done this — and that's fine. The people who fill tags here aren't the most experienced, they're the most disciplined. Do these and you're ahead of most of the mountain:
Shoot straight — this is #1. More tags are lost to missed shots than to bad scouting. Practice off sticks and packs, uphill and downhill, and winded — not just prone off a bench. That's the whole point of the shooting standard and the zero day.
Step off the trail. Walking a mile on the trail keeps you in the pressured band. Get behind the ugly feature.
Hunt slow, not far. Death marches blow you out and push elk ahead of you. Five deliberate miles beats twelve frantic ones.
Respect the wind every minute. It's the one thing you can't out-tough.
Don't quit in your head. Tags fill on day 5 and 6, after the crowd has gone home.
Have the dead-elk plan ready before you shoot — an elk out here dies a long way down in the deadfall. See Meat.
The whole strategy in one line: get behind a deterrent before light, keep the wind in your face, glass slow, close only as far as you need, and shoot straight. Everything else is detail.
Train · the pack-out is the crux
Train to carry a bull down a mountain
A down elk is 200+ pounds of boned-out meat, in several loads, down steep ground at altitude — often on day five. That pack-out is harder than the shot, and it's a team effort: every pound you can't carry is a pound someone else carries, or an extra trip. The goal isn't to be the fittest one out there — it's to not be the reason we make an extra trip or carry someone out.
Below is the full 12-week program — real dates, real workouts. Follow all of it, or scale it to where you are. Either way the engine is the Saturday ruck; if you do one thing, do that.
New to this? Scale it, don't skip it. Starting from the couch, don't jump into the full loads — begin the ruck at 20–25 lb on flat ground and add ~5 lb (or time, or vert) each week, one change at a time. Same for the lifts: lighter, clean form, leave 2–3 reps in the tank. Build toward the numbers below; don't start on them.
The 12-week calendar
Week
Dates
Block
Focus
0
Jul 14–19
On-ramp
Anchor the lifts, baseline ruck, no heroics
1–3
Jul 20 – Aug 9
Base
Build muscle while conditioning is cheap; ruck ladder starts
4
Aug 10–16
Down week
Back off ~40% — absorb, don't accumulate
5–7
Aug 17 – Sep 6
Build
Heavier lifts, less volume; ruck weight + vert climb
Four lifts, one engine day, the Saturday ruck, and a restore day. Weekday sessions run 60–70 min; Saturday's the long one. Deliberate friction: Friday legs into Saturday's ruck trains hiking on tired legs — which is the hunt.
Effort is set by RPE — reps left in reserve. RPE 7 = 3 clean reps left; RPE 8 = 2. Nothing to failure on the main lifts, ever. The three numbers per exercise below are Base → Build → Peak.
Mon — Lower Strength
Back squat (belt squat if the knees complain) — 4×5–6 → 5×3–5 (top set + back-offs) → 3×3–5, crisp
RDL or sumo deadlift (alternate every 3 weeks) — 3×6–8 → 3×5 → 2×6
DB step-up, 14–18" box — 3×8/leg → 3×8/leg heavier → 2×10/leg with a pack on
Carries — farmer 4×40 m heavy + suitcase 2×30 m/side (every block)
Lateral raises — 3×15–25
Tue — Upper Push (+ 20–25 min zone 2)
Barbell bench — 4×6–8 → 4×4–6 → 3×5 @ RPE 7
Incline DB or Smith press — 3×8–10 (the shoulder-friendly slot; warm the cuff first, swap to DB/Smith any week a shoulder talks)
Seated DB shoulder or Arnold press — 3×8–10
Lateral raises 4×12–20 + rear-delt raises 3×15
Triceps — pushdown + overhead, 2–3×10–15 each
Neck — flexion/extension 3×15–20
Wed — Mountain Engine
Warm up 5 min, pick one engine, finish with the trunk block every time.
Engine A — "Stairs": Stairmaster + weighted vest (20 lb Base → 30 Build → 40 Peak): 25–35 min steady (talking possible but unwanted), or 10 × (2 min hard / 1 min easy). The most hunt-specific machine in the building.
Engine B — "Steps": box step-ups ~16" with vest or pack, 20–30 min of :40 on / :20 off.
Engine C — "Circuit": 4–5 rounds — 90-sec hard run or 250 m SkiErg · 8 sandbag-to-shoulder · 40 m heavy farmer carry · 10 step-overs. Pack-out simulation.
Trunk block (every time): Pallof press 3×12/side · back extension or bird-dog 3×10 · heavy shrugs 3×12.
Peak weeks 9–10: Wednesday becomes an easy 30–40 min pack walk — the weekend holds the real work by then.
Thu — Upper Pull (+ 20–25 min zone 2)
Weighted pull-ups — 4×6–10 → 4×6–10 → 3×6
Barbell or chest-supported row — 4×8–12
Heavy DB shrugs 3×10–15 + face pulls 3×15–20
Biceps — two movements, 3×10–15 each
Neck 3×15–20 (+ lateral raises 2×20 if time)
Grip: go double-overhand where you can — grip is pack-out currency.
Fri — Lower Build & Durability
Leg press or belt squat — 3–4×8–12 → 3×8–10 → 2×10 light & crisp
Bulgarian split squat 3×8–10/leg — the single most hunt-transferable lift in the gym
Hip thrust or back extension 3×8–12
Seated calf 3×10–15 + tibialis raises 3×15–20 (train the shins — descents live here)
Side-hill work — lateral step-ups 2×10/side or monster walks + Copenhagen plank 2×8/side
Lateral raises 3×15–25
Sat — The Ruck (the keystone)
Your hunting pack + the boots you'll wear, from day one — the gear is part of the training. Weigh the loaded pack on a scale; log load, time, and vert. Water is your ballast early (dump it at the turnaround — kind to the knees); switch to plates or a sandbag once loaded descents become the point (~week 6). Check your feet after every ruck: a hot spot in July is a lesson, in October it's the hunt. Raise one variable a week — weight, distance, or vert — never two.
Wk
Sat
Load
Time
Vert
0
Jul 18
30 lb
60–75'
rolling — baseline, log it
1
Jul 25
35 lb
75'
~1,000 ft
2
Aug 1
35 lb
90'
~1,200 ft
3
Aug 8
40 lb
90'
~1,500 ft
4
Aug 15
30 lb
60'
easy — down week
5
Aug 22
45 lb
90–105'
~1,500 ft
6
Aug 29
45 lb
120'
~1,800 ft — loaded descents start
7
Sep 5
50 lb
120'
~2,000 ft
8
Sep 12
50 lb
150'
2,000+ ft, get above 8,000 ft · + Sun 25 lb / 45'
9
Sep 19
55 lb
150–180'
~2,500 ft · + Sun 30 lb / 60'
10
Sep 26
60 lb
~180'
2,000–2,500 ft — dress rehearsal, full kit · + Sun easy 45'
11
taper
30 lb
60'
one easy midweek hike, that's it
Zone 2 & Restore
Easy aerobic work is the base that decides whether day 3 of the hunt feels like day 1. Add 20–25 min of zone 2 after Tue and Thu, 30–40 min Sunday, and the Saturday ruck is mostly zone 2 by design. The band is nasal-breathing conversational — roughly 130–147 bpm; bike, rower, SkiErg, or a hill walk all count. Sunday Restore: 30–40 min easy + 20 min mobility (couch stretch, 90/90 hips, ankle dorsiflexion, T-spine, hamstring floss, a few minutes of nasal breathing).
When life gets heavy — bend, don't break
Two short-sleep nights: keep the lift, cap everything at RPE 7, drop the extra zone 2. Sleep is the real limiter — bed by 9–9:30 is part of the program.
Compressed week — protect in this order: Saturday ruck → Monday lower → Wednesday engine → Tue/Thu upper → the extra zone 2. The mirror forgives a missed arm day; the mountain won't forgive missed rucks.
Sick: fever or below-the-neck = full rest; head cold = easy walk only.
Joint niggle: swap the movement (belt squat is the escape hatch); never push through pain that changes how you walk. Boot hot spots get fixed the same day.
Traveling: a 40-min incline treadmill walk + a band day covers it.
Fueling
Protein every day — your muscle-retention insurance through all the volume.
Carbs around training and the Saturday ruck — the performance lever, not the enemy.
Hydrate hard, especially on rucks over 90 min (add electrolytes — a 6 a.m. summer ruck still collects its tax).
Don't diet into the hunt. Eat to fuel and recover — show up strong, not depleted.
Break your boots in now, and wear them beyond rucks — fresh boots on the mountain end hunts. Fix hot spots same-day.
Get the loaded downhills in during August so the worst soreness happens at home, not over a dead elk. Trekking poles save your knees — train with them.
Altitude: get to the August scout at ~8,000 ft if you can, and arrive at camp a day early. Hydrate, go easy on the first-night beers, know the AMS signs.
The one mistake is waiting until September. This week: boots on your feet, one ruck. Come to the Saturday rucks when you can — training together is half the battle, and it breaks in everyone's gear.
Camp · food, water, fuel & keeping it running
A legit base camp for four, seven days
We sleep and eat out of a truck base camp on FR 119 at ~8,000 ft — Tim's Kodiak canvas tent, coolers, generator. There are no services up the road (nearest town is Duchesne, ~45 min out), so what we don't bring, we don't have. A cold, hungry, dehydrated crew fails on day five — so this stuff is not an afterthought.
▶ Food & kitchen
28 person-days needs a real plan, not a backpacking stove. We run a 2-burner propane stove, a big pot + griddle, a written 7-day menu, and a cook rotation — aim ~3,000–3,500 cal/person/day for hard work in the cold. Field lunches + snacks are on each person. One person owns the menu and shopping.
▶ A third cooler for food
Both Yetis stay empty and ready for meat. Food and drinks need their own cooler so we're not stuck when a bull drops. Pre-freeze jugs of water at home — they're block ice on the way in, drinking water as they melt.
▶ Water
Four people working at altitude need ~1.5 gal each per day → 40+ gallons for the week. A Sawyer squeeze is too slow for camp — bring a gravity filter + three 7-gal jugs, and pre-fill in Duchesne on the way in. Keep filters from freezing (they crack); carry backup purification tabs.
▶ Fuel
Two fuels, none sold up the road: gas for the generator, diesel for the truck. ~2 five-gal gas cans (generator — add one only if the Pioneer ends up coming) and a 5-gal diesel reserve for the truck. Label them so nobody puts gas in the diesel. Store on dirt, away from camp; check fire restrictions first.
▶ Power
The generator charges devices — run it in short bursts into power banks, then charge quietly off those. Run it outside on bare ground, never near the tent or sleepers (carbon monoxide). It also airs tires back up and can revive a dead battery with the jump pack.
▶ Sanitation & bears
Fixed camp of four = a real hygiene plan: a latrine / WAG-bag toilet and a hand-wash station at the kitchen (we handle raw gut and meat, then cook — norovirus ends hunts). October bears are fattening for winter: lock the coolers, put all food/trash in a hard-sided vehicle at night, hang meat away from the tent.
Quartermaster: one person (likely Kimble) owns food, water, and fuel as one integrated list — one brain, one shopping trip, no gaps and no triples.
Gear · who brings what + your pack
The shared kit — claim your part
This is how we avoid three stoves and zero game bags. OPEN rows need an owner — claim them in the group thread, and let's have every row named by the August scout.
Item
Who
Notes
Your rifle — zeroed & proven
each hunter
Elk-legal, zeroed within 2 weeks, 40+ rounds of your hunting load. Same weight as boots and tag — see the shooting standard
Base-camp shelter
Tim
Kodiak canvas tent — room for all four
Coolers (meat) + ice plan
Tim
Two Yetis kept empty for meat; ice runs to Duchesne
Third cooler (food/drinks)
OPEN
So the meat coolers stay ready
Meat-hauling frames
Tim
Two pack frames; more backs = fewer trips
Game bags — a set each
OPEN
Everyone brings their own set — essential
Camp kitchen — 2-burner stove, pot, griddle, fuel
OPEN
Quartermaster owns the food + kitchen
Water — gravity filter + 3× jugs
OPEN
~40 gal for the week
Fuel — gas cans + diesel reserve
OPEN
None sold up the road
Power / charging
Tim
Generator + power banks
Trucks — a 2nd truck is the priority
Tim + OPEN
Lead truck ✓. A 2nd truck is near-mandatory (one rig deep, no cell) — the real gap to fill. The Pioneer stays home by default — it only rides along if the ranger call + scout confirm the Zone B loops are open Oct 3–9, 50"-legal, and worth hunting.
Truck recovery kit + full-size spare
OPEN
Traction boards, tow strap, shovel, chains — FR 119 turns to mud
Sat comms — one per pair
Tim + OPEN
Tim's inReach + a 2nd inReach/PLB for the other pair. See Safety
GMRS/FRS radios — everyone
OPEN
Pair-to-pair & pair-to-camp; "bull down, bring the frames"
Checkmarks save to this device — tick as you pack. A starting template; adjust for your kit and the forecast we'll get closer in.
0 / 0 packed
Three things that end a hunt if you forget them: your license & tag (on your body, always), blaze orange, and broken-in boots. Do not show up with fresh boots.
Meat · the work after the shot
If a bull goes down, the real work begins
A boned-out bull is ~200 lb of meat — realistically 3–4 heavy pack loads and most of a day of crew labor. In Zone A there’s no road spur, so it comes out on your back to the road — there’s no machine shortcut for it. And in a warm early-October afternoon the clock to get it cold is hours. Plan for the work, not just the shot.
Cool it fast. Gutless method (we'll walk it through before the hunt — watch a video now), meat off the bone and into game bags in shade and moving air.
Cooler reality: our two Yetis hold about one bull with enough ice. Pre-frozen jugs are your block ice for the first days; re-ice and drain daily; keep bags off the cooler floor.
Line up a processor NOW — confirm a specific shop's rifle-season hours, whether they take evening/weekend drop-offs, and turnaround. Have a backup. Decide the self-process fallback (space, clean surface, sharp knives, practiced) before, not over the carcass.
Two-bull decision tree: if a second bull hits the ground, the coolers can't hold both — the truck makes a Duchesne ice/meat run within 24 hours, or a processor drop-off happens immediately. Decide who drives before it happens, not after.
Retrieval is the law and the ethic. Wasting edible meat is wanton destruction — for elk it can be a felony. We pack out every edible pound. That's non-negotiable.
Safety & Emergency · read before you go
How we all come home
We engineered away the dead-battery-deep-on-119 problem. This is the same rigor applied to the thing that actually matters: a hurt person, 2–3 miles from the truck, with no cell signal. Off these benches, help is 6–24 hours out — you are the first responder. Plan like it.
Communications & when to call for help
One satellite communicator per pair — Tim's inReach plus a second inReach or a PLB for the other pair. One device for a split party is a single point of failure. Add GMRS/FRS radios for everyone for pair-to-pair and camp comms.
Everyone practices triggering an SOS and sending a preset message before we leave — a first-timer fumbling an unfamiliar device mid-emergency is a real failure mode.
SOS path: inReach SOS → Garmin's response center → Duchesne County Sheriff Search & Rescue. Ground response is a half-day-plus; a helicopter needs daylight, weather, and a place to land. Our MapShare link is shared with the families at home.
Daily check-in & hard turnaround
Hard turnaround time every day — start walking out at a set clock time, on elk or not. First-timers always blow "just over the next ridge" and get benighted; that's how a twisted ankle becomes a hypothermic night out.
Two check-ins a day (midday + by dark). If a pair misses it, camp tries radio/sat; if no contact by a set time, camp prepares to hit SOS — nobody goes stumbling into the dark after them.
Trip plan left at home: our dates, the MapShare link, and vehicle descriptions, with the instruction: "If you don't hear from us by [date/time], call Duchesne County Sheriff."
Firearms — our biggest injury risk, because we're new
1Treat every gun as loaded. Muzzle never covers anything you won't destroy.
2Finger off the trigger until your sights are on the animal and you've decided to shoot.
3Know your target and what's beyond it — the #1 cause of hunting shootings is failing to identify the target and backstop. Never point a muzzle toward another pair's zone.
4Chamber a round only when actively setting up on an animal. Unload — empty chamber, mag out — before boarding the truck or any OHV, or crossing any obstacle.
Orange is crew policy, not just law: one blaze-orange outer article minimum — hat and vest is better — on everyone in the field, camp crew included. Kimble is the named safety officer; the two-first-timer pair gets the tightest leash and the most open terrain.
Trauma kit — matched to the real bad day
A "blister kit" doesn't stop a gunshot, a deep boning-knife laceration, or a bad fall. A femoral bleed kills in minutes; help is hours away.
Bleeding control per pair: a real tourniquet (CAT/SOF-T), hemostatic gauze (QuikClot/Celox), a pressure/Israeli bandage, and chest seals — owned by a named person.
Group kit: SAM splint, trauma shears, wound closure, meds (ibuprofen, antihistamine, an epi option if anyone's at risk).
Gear without training is theater — everyone does Stop the Bleed (free, ~90 min) before October; ideally Kimble + Tim do a Wilderness First Aid course.
Cold, weather & carbon monoxide
Wet + wind + cold + benighted = hypothermia, and the hypothermic person is the last to notice (watch for stumbles, mumbles, fumbles, grumbles — buddy-check each other). Find or replace the missing rain shell before the trip.
Every day pack, even day hunts: emergency bivy/space blanket, fire kit, extra insulation, headlamp + spare batteries, water + backup purification, your personal bleed control.
Stand-down authority: Kimble or Tim can call a low-country or rest day when a front moves in. Standing down is permitted in advance — first-timers push into weather because they drove all this way.
Carbon monoxide: a CO alarm goes inside the sleeping tent. Never run the generator, stove, heater, or lantern inside or near the tent. Never cook in a sealed tent.
Regs · know before you go
The short version
Verify every specific against the current 2026 Utah DWR Big Game Field Regulations before the hunt. Regs change yearly — this page is not the authority, and a couple of these changed for 2026.
Tag: any-bull, general season 1, rifle, Oct 3–9. Capped & first-come — buy early. License + hunter-ed or Trial authorization current and on you.
Blaze orange (2026 change): at least one orange article (hat/shirt/jacket/vest/sweater) on your outermost layer during the rifle hunt. The old 400-square-inch rule is gone.
Shooting hours: generally 30 min before sunrise to 30 min after sunset — confirm the exact table in the guidebook.
Rifles ride unloaded on any OHV or side-by-side — empty chamber, mag out (Utah §76-11-204, a Class B misdemeanor otherwise). No shooting from or across a road, or from a vehicle.
Validate your tag immediately at the kill site, before moving the animal — notch the date + attach the tag, or e-tag in the Utah Hunting & Fishing app (GPS + photos). A zip tie only attaches the tag; it isn't validation.
Harvest report is mandatory within 30 days (by ~Nov 8, 2026), even if you didn't fill your tag — $50 late fee otherwise. E-tagging files it automatically.
Wanton waste: pack out all edible meat — wasting it is wanton destruction (§23A-5-311), a serious crime for elk.
Fire restrictions: check the current stage before we leave — it's a dry year, and it governs campfires and the generator.
OHV: the Pioneer stays home by default — it only comes if the ranger call + scout confirm the Zone B loops are open in October and legal for a 50" machine. If it comes: designated ≤50" routes only (it’s exactly 50.0" — confirm the posted limit reads “50 or less”), registration current on machine + trailer, and no off-route driving to a downed elk.