Trekking and hunting

"If you do backpacking right, I guess, you don't want to come back, or at least it changes people in profound ways."

I don't think you're alone in that feeling, Dan. It's one I experience during and after every trip. No easy answers.

All I know is that hunting never was part of my trips and I quit fishing years ago. Just got tired of spending hours in beyond beautiful places focused on killing things instead of being part of the landscape. My individual path.

I was going to mention those guys from the Par trip too. I see grouse as less and less dumb these days, however easy to kill they are. Most of the grouse I see are acting in weird ways to distract us and protect the chicks that are wandering around. I can't think of seeing a single grouse I have seen lately that was without chicks. I don't fish anymore either – they can take their chances with another hiker!

I was on my way in to the Cirque of Towers in Wyoming in 1968 and a young guy about my age came up to us and wanted to borrow a rope so he could laso a deer. Maybe it was Eric Ryback! He was pretty serious and HUNGRY and part of a Outward Bound type group though. Ryback did the CDT a few years later I think. I just finished that book. I don't think he mentioned once what anything weighed except for references to shouldering a heavy pack after resupply. I'm pretty sure he had learned to go quite light by then. He was using tarps way back then.

They arn't dumb , just naive ;)

I know exactly where you are coming from Tom. I too used to hunt and fish. One day it just felt wrong to kill animals for my own pleasure. My position doesn't make much sense, as i still love a bloody rare steak.
Not knocking anyone else, because when i did hunt and fish, i loved doing so.

"One day it just felt wrong to kill animals for my own pleasure. My position doesn't make much sense, as i still love a bloody rare steak.
Not knocking anyone else, because when i did hunt and fish, i loved doing so."

I think we all change as we go through life, Mike. Not all in the same way, for sure. John Muir once observed, here I paraphrase, "little boys are naturally vicious killers, but most grow out of it before they become men". That's the way it worked out for me; the terror of the woods when I got my first BB gun, done with hunting when I was 27, but still ate meat up until about 25-30 years ago. I quit fishing about 15 years ago, but still eat fish. Actually, for 10 years before that I would symbolically catch, clean, and eat one fish meal/year in the mountains to be philosophically consistent, but finally gave it up because I couldn't stand the cognitive dissonance of killing such beautiful creatures in such beautiful country. Today I deal with the inconsistency of my position by keeping in mind a quote attributed(some say erroneously) to Albert Einstein: "Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds". Sometimes it's not a lot of comfort. But, like you, I refrain from judging or criticizing hunters. Each must find their own path. Handguns are another matter, best not gone in to on this website as we have all learned.

"If you think about what would happen to the wild if everyone that ate meat hunted, things would be a real mess"

Look on the bright side, Dan.
We wouldn't have such a population problem, that's for sure.

"If you think about what would happen to the wild if everyone that ate meat hunted, things would be a real mess"

I personally just do not agree with this. Think about how much more wilderness there would be if we allowed corn,wheat,soy, cofee, cattle ranches ect,ect to over grow with wilderness and allowed it to fill up with wild game. Imagine if America got its meat from wild western buffalo ( original herds said to be 20 miles wide) instead of western fecal farms. Not that I can convince anyone to change their mind.
Nothing is more natural than to be out there killing. Thats what everything else is out there doing and Im no better than the wolf or the eagle and the universe doesn't care what my philosophy is -survive or die is its answer to all questions.

I don't know what the future holds but we either have great promise or are a great problem. In keeping with the OP though, there ceratinly can't be too many people around that have supplemented their backpacking food supply, or extended it, with a gun.

I'm going to beat this dead horse and then eat it.

"there ceratinly can't be too many people around that have supplemented their backpacking food supply, or extended it, with a gun."

Agree, While people have always traveled while hunting along the way "backpacking" is a modern past time and combining it with hunting/gathering is a pretty new concept. only by defining what the goal is and then figuring out what is and what is not practical can we see if this is something worth pursing.

Brian, there simply would not be enough forage and game on Earth to support 6,000,000,000 humans without organized agriculture. So we cannot let all of our fields and pastures go fallow.

If you're pontificating about some fantasy Earth with a total human population 1/1000th of the true figure, then, sure, I'm with you.

Shortly Lynn will pop up advocating castration of 99% of human males at birth…

"I'm going to beat this dead horse and then eat it."

In keeping with the spirit of the thread, you have to shoot the horse.

"Shortly Lynn will pop up advocating castration of 99% of human males at birth…"

As long as I get to be in the one percent in my next reincarnation, I could live with that. ;)

Dean, Im not sure if it could work or not. I wont pretend to 'know". but every time I hear this argument it seems that cutting down the rain forest to grow soy is somehow ethical and sustainable and hunting-not. I just don't in my gut believe this. I do know that if the earth WHERE to be allowed to grow wild -the more the better.
And its a pet peeve of mine to think about the fact that in the US we have buffalo and elk -and yet insist on ranching an invasive destructive species -cattle for meat purposes! Milk is a good use for them but there would be a lot less of them to fulfill that market.

Yeah, soybeans replacing rain forest can't be good. People have gotten themselves between a rock and a hard spot.

"People have gotten themselves between a rock and a hard spot."

It all boils down to population in the end.
Maybe Lynn's on to something?

It would be neat to try a trip like this. Taking 4-5 days worth of food for a 7 day trip would be an interesting experiment that wouldn't have dire consequences if you got totally skunked.

One challenge with a trip like this would be doing it in a sustainable manner. You would want to hunt species that are adequately abundant so you aren't permanently hurting the natural area for everyone else.

Back to the origonal question, yes. I've never been on a trip, that was more than 3 days long, that I did not supplement my food in some way shape or form. In some parts of the US, at the right time of year, you could easily go for a week, covering ~100 miles "living off the land". If you were willing to be flexible about times and routes, and were familiar with the flora and fauna of the range you were in, you could do this by bringing little or no food at all, I'd bring some.

You would want to take on such a trip utilizing both a fishing pole and a rifle. It could be done with neither, like UL backpacking, knowledge and skill can replace gear. I learned how to tickle trout about 20 years ago in YNP, and have eaten many a fish without ever wetting a line. Same for those "stupid" grouse, I've taken my share by never firing a shot, it is NOT easy, and they are not dumb. these kinds of skills are allot like starting fire with a bow drill, nice to know how to do it, but a mini Bic is sure hard to beat.

Bows, darts, slingsgots, etc. Sure these are all viable, but do require more skill, and time to hone that skill. I hunt grouse almost exclusivly with a bow, if I really had to put them in the pot, I'd choose a shotgun. I've taken dozens of pigeons with a blow gun, and I'm sure you could take allot of small game with one. I never was very good with a sling shot, but know a guy that regularly takes grouse with one.

These meals need not be dishes made up of a singular form of protein either. On a trip to the Uintas a few years ago, another fellow and my self, rounded up more fish and mushrooms than 7 people could eat, for 3 out of 9 dinners. I've had salmon and grouse, slow cooked in piles of wild peas and onions. Dandilion and nettle greens salad, berries of all sorts, cattail roots (always a treat in slick rock country), Pine and willow tea, the list goes on.

I feel that the real debate about doing such things comes down to the question of when and where, wether it is ecologicaly sustainable, and fits the wilderness ethic of the locale.

"I'm going to beat this dead horse and then eat it."

Now that would be illegal in Calfornia, the eating part
that is.

I advocate castration of 99% of males at birth ;) It would solve both the gun issue and the over population issue, and we would be a society of touchy-feely vegan women waited on hand and foot by their adoring and non-rebellious Eunoch sons!

If you're gonna beat a dead horse and eat it, make sure it's a stallion!

> castration of 99% of males at birth ;) It would solve both the gun issue
> and the over population issue
Serious lack of logic and clear thinking here. I am quite sure that each of the remaining 1% of males would be quite delighted to 'look after' 100 females. Negligible impact on population growth.
Come to think of it, that's what happens in many animal species already, where there is one clear alpha male who does all the breeding.

Now if Lynn had suggested nobbling 99% of the breeding females, that WOULD seriously impact the population growth. But I am NOT going to advocate that at all: China is already going through some of the inevitable hassles.

Cheers
(

"I advocate castration of 99% of males at birth ;)"

You mean instead of at marriage, as it is currently…. ;-)

"You mean instead of at marriage, as it is currently…. ;-)"

Ever the wag. Hilarious!!

"Serious lack of logic and clear thinking here."

Not really, just to thoughts combined into one. the castration was mainly to reduce the number of weapons on the planet, and the desire to go to war. Additional benefits would be a whole lot more subdued and subservient males, and a huge reduction in rape, pornography and paedophilia.

Your right in one way though. It would likely lead to an increase in population as the young males who traditionally would have been killed through violence, reckless driving and general lack of higher cognitive function, is known to lead to an increase in male life expectancy. So maybe a bad idea, population-wise….

Now you know I'm all joking, right? Some of my best friends are males who have merely been circumcised ;)

"we would be a society of touchy-feely vegan women waited on hand and foot by their adoring and non-rebellious Eunoch sons!"

All complaining about how "a hard man would be good to find". ;}

"reduce the number of weapons on the planet, and the desire to go to war."

Nah. The only thing that would change is then it would be all those women ripping each other's throats out over the few remaining males. Ditto pedophilia. ;}