How To Set Hunting Camp Up With Pack Goats

A lot of you watch me both hunt and hike and do all that stuff.  I wanted to show you how to set up hunting camp with pack goats and break down what my base camp model looks like in elk camp.  There’re some nuances to it that you might find helpful.  Just things that I do to be efficient and comfortable and just the things that we do.

A Good Drying Line

Number one I always have a good drying line.  The reason I do that is you can take a stinky shirt especially Merino wool, put it out let it air dry and it loses a lot of the stink.   Also, I run towels and do that sort of stuff.  I hang a mini inReach on it.  I like to send out satellite texts.  If you’re way back in, you may need help.  A friend of mine Dick Ross you have seen in some of my videos 72 yr. old man had his legs rolled over by a refrigerator size rock in a rockfall and no way to communicate.  He laid on the mountain for 18 hours.  So, if you’re going to be deep you guys, have a way to communicate.  Have a way to get some help.  These are a couple hundred bucks and can save your life.

The Tent I Use

This is the sapphire tipi tent.  As a goat packer you get free shipping on these.  These are made in Sweden and are ultra-high quality.  The super cool part is it has a great ventilation system.   You can have an open pit fire in them, so you don’t actually have to pack in a stove.  And the entire thing, tipi, floor, awning, and everything is only 41 lbs. which means I can put it on a goat.  Which is really cool.  Currently we have the Safir 7 (CP) Tentipi available.  By ordering through us you get free shipping.

How To Set Up Hunting Camp With Pack Goats: Why A Tarp is Important in Hunting Camp

So as far as the camp goes, you can see I kind of have a tarp door.  I hang tarps everywhere.  This camp has traditionally been a camp where we have gotten soaked and just been poured on.  If you’ve seen the Elkville videos on youtube this is where we are.  We are in Elkville.  And so, there is no rain in the forecast here but in this valley, we get a ton.  So, we still put-up tarps anyway.

Chairs and Garbage

You can see we pack in comfortable chairs.  This is an old camp.  There is lots of bailing twine around from old horse camps.  There’s water really close.  We are not super close to water.  Water is about 75 yards off.  The reason is if we are next to the river, it’s really cold.  It’s a little warmer when you camp away from it.  Always have a big garbage sack.  We burn everything that is paper.  We haul out everything out that’s plastic.

Shower

One of the things I really love is this little shower.  This thing is like Ambrosia.  I never try to warm it up in the sun.  Sometimes I fill it up and let it get lukewarm in the sun but it’s never warm enough.  I’ll just use the kettle on the fire add that to it and now I have a nice warm shower.  It’s worth its weight in gold to be able to take a shower.

Firewood

We actually packed in two summers ago chain sawed up a bunch of wood, split it up and made that a nice fun trip with the kids. I always run different stacks of wood.  I have my little stuff, my big stuff and then I have red needles.  The easiest way to start a fire is use red pine needles.  If you look around, they look like gasoline in the woods.

Easy Meal Cooking

We run a single big pot.  We’ll eat both lunch and dinner as the same meal.  It just gets better throughout the day. This day is chicken curry. And that stuff is one of my favorites.  It is super delicious.  We will throw instant rice in there.  On this day we are feeding 5 guys.  We have 3 hunters; we have a camera man, and we have what we call a camp Jack.   Which is someone who helps us around camp, cooks food, prepares stuff, brings goats up, gets them ready.  It’s just a lot of work to be back in the backcountry.  We killed 3 bulls last year 9.5 miles in. And just between hunting and butchering bulls, it’s everything we can do.  So, we always have somebody come in and help us with food.  People always want to come.  Take someone with you.  They will have fun.

Food Storage Coolers

We pack in a ton of our food.  And again, we are eating real food.  This is not a mountain house camp.  We pack it in coolers. So, we have 3 big coolers we run and what we do is pack everything in frozen solid.  We put 5 lbs. dry ice in each one.  After the first day in camp our dry ice is gone but everything is frozen so incredibly solid that we will still be thawing meat on the 6^th and 7^th day.

How To Set Up Hunting Camp With Pack Goats:

Storage Boxes

I’ve gone to these storage boxes.  As you know as a goat packer, the goats love hitting each other in the panniers.  These pack nicely in our panniers we have on our website.  I just really like these containers because they keep camp instead of piles of bags and stuff sitting everywhere.  Each thing has its separate box that it goes into.  And we can haul all that stuff in.

First Aid Kit

I always carry in a very big first aid kit.  This even has a splint in it.  The reason I have this one is because I may have to splint one of the goats.  I always have lot of tarps and I always bring in an extra bed, bed pad, liner in case we get some really cold weather.

Hunting Camp Goat Gear Setup

I always pack my saddles, goat coats in one spot. I have one central location where everyone knows where to hang all our leashes.  It’s easy to lose track of these.  I have a system when we pull a goat off, we always hang them here.  When we tie them up, we pull it back off.  We don’t leave them tied up around the woods.

Dry & Safe Area for Goats

I have a tarp up for the goats.  If it starts raining all the goats can fit under here.  I let them free range while I’m here during the day.  They all have bells on so I can hear them.  They feed around the camp and always kind of stay within jingle distance with their bells. And once at night, everyone gets tied up at night.  I use high lines but what I really like too is using deadfall logs under the tarp.  I can put a number of deadfalls under the tarp efficiently and goats can be on both sides of them.  I’ve had a lot of luck with this.

Hunting Camp & Hanging Meat

We use synthetic bags.  The cotton ones are only one time use.  These are really strong and can hang them.  I carry a lot of 50 cord.

Hunting Camp Cleanup

One last thing is we always clean up our camp when we leave.  If goats have dug out beds, we rake them back nice and throw the poop in the bushes out of the camp area.

I hope you find this helpful how to set up a hunting camp with Pack Goats.

Hunting With Pack Goats

We highly suggest our Pack Goats 101 Course to learn more about packing with goats, especially hunting with them.  Read our article Pack Goats and Predators – How to Prevent Issues Before They Occur.

Check out our hunting videos on our YouTube Channel.

Pack Goats 101

The Pack Goat 101 Course is the most informational and comprehensive tool anywhere for packing with goats. No matter your level of experience in goat packing there is something in this course for you. This course will benefit anyone regardless of goals for a pack goat string. Whether it’s day trips in the front country or long hauls far from any trail head it is sure to be beneficial. Pack Goat 101 speaks to every topic on packing with goats from the most basic to advanced packing tips, tricks, strategies, and preparation. This course is the ultimate tool to propel you into a successful pack goat owner.