Have You Ever Hit THE WALL??

[ElkNut1]

Just curious as hunters we seem to push ourselves at times in the woods. Even though we do our best to be in decent physical shape we can really get tuckered out in certain exhausting situations! Heat , heavy loads & steep country can come to mind & really take it out of a guy! So have you ever been so exhausted you could not go another step even after a short rest, you were just to spent! I've seen a few that were very close to this but have never experienced myself, it seems after a short rest I can find the energy to push forward once again until I finally get where I'm going! Can we & do you train for such times to toughen our bodies & mental preparation?

ElkNut1

[LckyTylr]

I haven't hit the wall while hunting. I did it once while wildland firefighting. I think it would be a little more difficult to do hunting, as I'm always Trying to limit the amount that I sweat and usually trying to pace myself. While firefighting in California, our 20 man crew got split up into two 10 man crews as we were the first crew to show up to a early morning lightning strike. We figured that since there wasn't much wind, we might be able to anchor in, divide and conquer before the fire got out of hand. I was running the saw so myself and the bucker were out front clearing as quickly as we could, as the 8 guys behind us were really making quick ground in the sparse but dry grass. We were about 50 - 100 feet behind the head of the fire most of the day and it never quite seamed out of reach. We were promised reinforcements numerous times throughout the morning and afternoon, but more and more fires were sparking up from rogue ambers, all of the new fires were taking up the tankers, dozers and other crews that were supposed to give us support. With the understanding that at any moment, a tanker would appear over the hill and finish off the fire in short order, we kept our heads down. We were on the line and engaged from 7:15 until 7:00 that night when the humidity finally slowed down the fire. When we were only 30 minutes from getting it under control and meeting up with the other half of our crew, a tanker flew over and squashed it. By that point, we were kind of mad that we didn't get the glory of killing it. By the time we got done mopping up, about half of us were so cramped up that we couldn't get back to the trucks. We sat in silence eating MRE's and wishing we had had more water for about an hour. The next day we brushed road all day and it was probably the least productive day I have ever seen of our crew, normally known for our drive and ambition. That was a wall that I don't care to encounter again, but what a cool memory it is.

[Elktracker]

Havent hit the wall completely but have been to a point to where I pushed my self so hard my legs just couldnt go another step without taking a short break. This was my second week of logging in very steep ground but now I seem to be able to go and go. I am really looking forward to this years hunting season as im in the best shape in my life

Josh

[ctdad]

I do believe you can train for this and I do just that. When I'm working out, and sweating and exhausted and I really just want to quit, I think about tough climbs from previous hunts and it keeps me going. I remember times when I was whipped, sitting on a rock questioning if there is an elk within 100 miles and thinking negatively. I know this attitude comes with fatigue and it motivates me to work harder. I workout with the goal of never allowing that negativity in again no matter how tired, I will keep going. I work my body and my mind to prepare for these scenarios.

[dotman]

Though I was close but have always been able to push thru it.

[ElkNut1]

Great stuff guys!! You guys are my type of hunters!

LckyTylr, heck of a story dude! You made me feel like a whimp!!! (grin)

ElkNut1

[JohnFitzgerald]

Confession time: Yes I have once! My mistake was refusing to read the warning signs. Ended up in trouble but with the help of a freind, I was able to get out. Made it to the hospital and found out I had a parasite infection in both kindneys and a 103 D fever. By then I was in excruciating pain and barely able to walk. Took me several days to overcome it. Of course I left 6 days later to go hunting again. Didn't make the Dr. or the wife happy! That is really the only time I've run into a "wall". It wasn't a fun experience. Your mind wants to keep moving but your body just won't work. I train very hard all year long and it happened to me. If your body is telling you something, make sure you listen! It could have been a lot worse for me and could be worse for you. My 2-cents!

[PHELPS GAME CALLS]

Kind Of!

We were going into a new high country mule deer area that was about 12 miles in. We left the trailhead at 10 p.m. and 4 hours into it about the same time me and my hunting partner both crashed out. We felt dizzy and drained. We sat down ate some peanut M&M's and the heavy mountain mist moved in to really knock us down. Even after resting, eating and drinking it took everything we had to make it the last 30 minutes to where we wanted to setup camp.

I vowed to never repeat that day so my training has been kicked to a whole new level (starting with strength first).

[Orion]

Yes I have hit the wall. Not the out of gas wall, but the dehydration wall. We had just walked a couple of miles and spotted a good bull about two miles away over rolling grass hills. The herd was headed for no mans land so we decided to drop our packs and start double timing it to get ahead of them. A two mile walk/run turned in to three. We stopped once to shed a couple of layers and continued on our sweaty way to get ahead of them. I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to close the deal. While I started in on the bull with knife in hand, my partner headed back for the packs. I was beyond thirsty. When he got back he said that he had no water and was getting light headed. I pulled about 8 ounces of water from my pack and we split it between us. Not nearly enough. We were both dehydrated and getting the shakes. We loaded up the packs and headed out. I felt like gumby by the time we got back and got to more water. I learned my lesson. Hydration starts well before the hunting begins. A couple of cups of coffee don't count. I drink a lot of water, and then drink some more before I even gather my gear for the day. I pack enough water for a full day, and then add more. It was a great hunt, a great bull, and a lesson well learned.

Orion

[Buglemaster]

A few years ago, 3 of us went 3 for 3 on a hot Sept morning. We knew we needed to get em out fast & went to work. It was a pretty decent,all down hill out, but it still took its toll on each of us.We could'nt have done it if we did'nt have plenty of fluid in the truck.Took each of us 4 trips, but had em in the cooler by around 4pm that evening.Took a leisurly dip in the elk river to wash away the blood & tears from a full days work.We said lets just do it 1 at a time thereafter...Still, it was one of the greatest mornings I've had in the high country.My sons first bull to boot!

[elkchaser503]

I did once coming out of the bar in Heppner Oregon after having a few to many and yes i walked into a wall... I wasn't driving. i did get up and go hunting the next morning

[BowElkDwn]

elkchaser503. Now thats funny. I bet more than one of us has hit that kind of wall.

[realunlucky]

I've hit the wall before but never hunting. It is amazing what your mind can make your body do but few people have the actual mental strength to push to full physical exhaustion. This was the single greatest thing I got from my time in the army learned my mental and physical breaking point. Now I can't lie to myself about giving 100% remember you have to answer to man in the mirror at the end of the season

[foxvalley]

Yes, We hit the wall each and every year!

Physically we are fine, it's the mental part that gets us every year. We backpack in and spend 2 weeks hunting hard mostly all day. Last year I packed in alone for 2 weeks, but burned out mentally and left a couple days early. I'm thinking that maybe a guy should take a day off and just lounge in camp when this happens. Any suggestions on how to stay mentally tough?

[LckyTylr]

FoxValley,

I think you are probably headed on the right track with taking a day or a half day off if you are getting frustrated/burned out/tired. Last year a friend accompanied me on the last weekend of the season. For me it was a REALLY slow season, only saw 4 elk the entire archery season and I heard less than a half dozen bugles, my timing, the wolf pressure and the weather were an awful combination. Anyway, the last weekend we both took off two days of work and decided that we weren't leaving until I killed a bull or until dark on the last day. 2 days later I was so frustrated with the lack of activity and sightings that I said "to he@# with it, I'm going home". My buddy convinced me to just try something different for an afternoon and reevaluate that evening. We spend the rest of the day looking for grouse to shoot. We flushed a bunch of them, but only one gave me a shot and I stuck him at 35 yards, right through the chest and pinning both wings. That bird went leaping down over the hill with me hot on his tail feathers, crashing and tumbling all the way to the creek. I finally pounced on him and looked back up at my buddy and the expression on his face was priceless, a mixture of "You Dummy" . . . . . "Dang that was a good shot" . . . . . . and "I'm Next". I shot a squirrel on the way back to camp and he and I enjoyed grouse with tobasco sauce that night over the camp fire. That night was different than the nights before, we told hunting stories, talked about women, just had fun, like Elk camp should be. Previously, I couldn't stop thinking about what I was going to do different the following morning and how I could get a shot at a bull, it was consuming me. It still does consume me. The next day we hiked and called and hiked and called and then we hiked and called some more. I had the drive that I hadn't had since opening morning. I still didn't see or hear an elk until later that season when I went on a rifle hunt with a different friend, but at least it was fun again for the last two days. I ended up killing Idaho's dumbest mule deer the last afternoon. He pretty much stood there with a sign on his neck that said "Please put me in your freezer". I'm pretty obliging.

Sometimes you just need do something else. I think this year I'm going to take a pellet rifle with me for when I get frustrated, I'll wreak havoc on those annoying squirrels that constantly nag me and give away my whereabouts, and I'll be smiling the Whole Time!

[mongopino915]

Have not hit the wall but was tired beyond anything I have ever put my body through. Hiked 10 miles to scout new elk country and ended up dropping a 6x6 bull. Carried a leg quarter back 10 miles to the truck on one bottle of water. My hunting partner and I laughed in pain and joy knowing how exhausted we were. Thank god for darkness, it cooled us down quite bit and managed to make it back to the truck at midnight. I would do it again in a heartbeat but would prefer a closer kill.

[Elksniper1]

I always have believed the wall is mental. And predetermined by the individual. I have never hit my wall. Even after packing somebody else's quarters. Although I have found boundaries that I mentally have had to open gates to get through. But I will say that my long time hunting partner , who I have seen a lot with Said he hit the wall last year and had to stop to recoup . After hearing his recount I have begun to believe that maybe my wall is coming . Hopefully it will not be this year or anytime soon. Stay mentally prepared . You can accomplush greatness if you believe in yourself. And more importantly get your meat to the cooler . Save the horns for the last load it always seems to pick me up packing a great set of elk horns . Enjoy the ride. You will forget about how hard it was in about two days!

[LckyTylr]

Elksniper1,
You are probably right, the human body is capable of some pretty amazing things when your mind is preoccupied and doesn't get in the way, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, when we are extremely focused and determined to complete the task at hand. In my above scenario firefighting, we lost all of our adrenaline and no longer had a "task" to keep our minds busy. We hadn't really hit a wall, as we were all young and in really good shape, but we lost our focus and the mentality to keep going. Had another fire erupted nearby that threatened more forrest, I am certain that there would have been 40 feet stomping to the heel and ready for action.

Looking back on other difficult things I have done, I don't think I've ever hit a wall as we are all presumably interpreting it. I'm sure that some of us have reached muscle failure or exceeded our respiratory limits, but as mentioned above, those can usually be regained with a short rest. I would add that muscle failure with added severe dehydration could probably push most of us into our perceived wall in short fashion.

What do you think?

[slim9300]

The closest I have come is a late season December elk hunt in 2008. I killed my cow about 8 miles behind a gate basically straight downhill the whole way. When an animal was down, we normally sent one of us downhill about 9 miles to a lower gate with one bike and the loaded up game cart and the other would go uphill light to get the truck and drive it the roughly 1 hour around. Well as soon as the elk hit the ground it was sleeting and pouring sideways and the temps remained just barely hovering above freezing. We were soaked and cold right off the bat and it was 4pm. By the time we had the game cart loaded it was dark and we were real cold.

The trip downhill to the lower gate has about 3 miles of STEEP downhill. My partner tried the cart on a small stretch of the steep stuff to see how everything would stop and all he did was slide about 20' before jackknifing the trailer. The shale was like ice. He made the decision that we would both go uphill and just push the roughly 400 lbs. the entire way. I advised against it but I knew he would be in a lot of danger trying to go out downhill and alone, so I accepted the decision.

We pushed the bikes and cart from about 5:30pm till about midnight. The entire time the sleet and rain was unrelenting. As we walked uphill toward the gate and the truck it just pelted us in the face the entire way. Every part of my clothing was saturated with water. Moving was keeping us from going past mild hypothermia but it had been hours since I could feel my hands and I was shivering uncontrolably for the first few hours (actually a good sign). When it got to be about 11pm and we were close to the truck (about a mile away), the rain lessened a bit and a really thick fog rolled in. We we're so mentally weak at this point that we discussed leaving the trailer, meat and all our gear and just riding to the truck to get warm. During the heated discussion we took a spur road to the left (remember we couldn't see 5' in front of us at this point) that started us downhill at a good clip. Before we realized what we had done, we were a couple hundred yards down a road that took us further from the truck. It may not sound very bad, but this was a brutal low point. I'm about 99% confident that without the hypothermic state we would have been just fine, but it's almost like a mental sickness when you start to break down. Regardless my buddy convinced me to just get the load back to the mainline and we would reassess the situation. Somehow we pushed that load all the way to the truck. When we got there we just left everything on the ground behind the truck and sat with our hands against the vents blasting hot air. It took literally 35 minutes before I could feel my hands and at that point they ached like a mofo. After sleeping for a couple hours in the warm truck, we loaded all our gear and drove home.

(Just to "protect" my manhood) I will say that last year my partner and I packed out 2 bulls in MT from about 7 miles back (one way). We took them in halves (boned out) with all of our gear in two separate trips on the same day. The loads were about 100-110 lbs. and the country is as steep as anything you find elk on. We joked during that pack out that it didn't hold a candle to that late season cow.

[LckyTylr]

slim9300 . . . . . . . DUDE!!!!

You are the MAN!

That sounds like a story that will become legend around the family campfires when you are a Grandpa.

I feel like a little Girl now.

[WapitiTalk1]

The closest I have come is a late season December elk hunt in 2008. I killed my cow about 8 miles behind a gate basically straight downhill the whole way. When an animal was down, we normally sent one of us downhill about 9 miles to a lower gate with one bike and the loaded up game cart and the other would go uphill light to get the truck and drive it the roughly 1 hour around. Well as soon as the elk hit the ground it was sleeting and pouring sideways and the temps remained just barely hovering above freezing. We were soaked and cold right off the bat and it was 4pm. By the time we had the game cart loaded it was dark and we were real cold.

The trip downhill to the lower gate has about 3 miles of STEEP downhill. My partner tried the cart on a small stretch of the steep stuff to see how everything would stop and all he did was slide about 20' before jackknifing the trailer. The shale was like ice. He made the decision that we would both go uphill and just push the roughly 400 lbs. the entire way. I advised against it but I knew he would be in a lot of danger trying to go out downhill and alone, so I accepted the decision.

We pushed the bikes and cart from about 5:30pm till about midnight. The entire time the sleet and rain was unrelenting. As we walked uphill toward the gate and the truck it just pelted us in the face the entire way. Every part of my clothing was saturated with water. Moving was keeping us from going past mild hypothermia but it had been hours since I could feel my hands and I was shivering uncontrolably for the first few hours (actually a good sign). When it got to be about 11pm and we were close to the truck (about a mile away), the rain lessened a bit and a really thick fog rolled in. We we're so mentally weak at this point that we discussed leaving the trailer, meat and all our gear and just riding to the truck to get warm. During the heated discussion we took a spur road to the left (remember we couldn't see 5' in front of us at this point) that started us downhill at a good clip. Before we realized what we had done, we were a couple hundred yards down a road that took us further from the truck. It may not sound very bad, but this was a brutal low point. I'm about 99% confident that without the hypothermic state we would have been just fine, but it's almost like a mental sickness when you start to break down. Regardless my buddy convinced me to just get the load back to the mainline and we would reassess the situation. Somehow we pushed that load all the way to the truck. When we got there we just left everything on the ground behind the truck and sat with our hands against the vents blasting hot air. It took literally 35 minutes before I could feel my hands and at that point they ached like a mofo. After sleeping for a couple hours in the warm truck, we loaded all our gear and drove home.

Yikes...... What a b@!! buster of a day/night.

[WapitiTalk1]

Last year my partner and I packed out 2 bulls in MT from about 7 miles back (one way). We took them in halves (boned out) with all of our gear in two separate trips on the same day. The loads were about 100-110 lbs. and the country is as steep as anything you find elk on. We joked during that pack out that it didn't hold a candle to that late season cow.

I remember that voice mail coming in. Joe and I were heading to town from our base camp for a bit of re-supplying and to whine openly about how crappy the season seemed to be in NW MT when we hit cell service and my phone "pinged". That call re-energized me to hit it hard again the next morning.

[slim9300]

Last year my partner and I packed out 2 bulls in MT from about 7 miles back (one way). We took them in halves (boned out) with all of our gear in two separate trips on the same day. The loads were about 100-110 lbs. and the country is as steep as anything you find elk on. We joked during that pack out that it didn't hold a candle to that late season cow.

I remember that voice mail coming in. Joe and I were heading to town from our base camp for a bit of re-supplying and to whine openly about how crappy the season seemed to be in NW MT when we hit cell service and my phone "pinged". That call re-energized me to hit it hard again the next morning.

I remember dealing with my partners "concerns" on day 8 of the hunt. He was starting to think that we might want to pull out and cut our losses on being morons and hunting the first two weeks of the season. He was trying to tell me that next year we would redeem ourselves when we come back on the normal dates. I think my exact words to him after thinking it over were, "We are hunting until the last minute of our last day and we will kill at least one bull!" The thought of having to explain my failure to all my friends and family for 11 months made me want to puke. Lol. Scott was pissed I think but he did the right thing. I am lucky to have a tough partner that I can truly rely upon.

[slim9300]

slim9300 . . . . . . . DUDE!!!!

You are the MAN!

That sounds like a story that will become legend around the family campfires when you are a Grandpa.

I feel like a little Girl now.

Thanks man. If you ever met my dad you would see how I may have inherited a very small percentage of his physical and mental toughness. I'm lucky for the upbringing I had. =)

[LckyTylr]

I know that I can outrun, outhike, outwrestle, out"just-about-anything" my Dad, but he puts me to shame with consistency. Since I was a little boy, he'd be out in his shop constructing something or other or doing community projects until 8:00 when he had his first class (high school teacher). As soon as school was over, he'd be back at it again, building something, helping someone out. Every single day, the man is on his feet from 0600 to 2200, ALWAYS working on something, must have something to do with growing up on a farm. He's the turtle, I'm the hare.

Sorry everyone, off topic. Just had to give some props to you "Old Guys" on the forum that still have lessons to teach us whipper-snappers.

[slim9300]

It's always a good time to reflect on family.

[iRem]

I have never hit the wall while hunting! Most of the times I feel that I have but I keep moving forward. To keep it short, when I do hit the wall is once I step foot in the house. I first kiss my wife huge my 3 boys and I then hit the Wall! Seems like I gave it all out in the woods but once I set foot in the house I am spent. Seems like I need to get in shape not for elk hunting but once I hit the door and start to unpack. I need a vacation form my vacation after elk season every year!!

[slim9300]

I have never hit the wall while hunting! Most of the times I feel that I have but I keep moving forward. To keep it short, when I do hit the wall is once I step foot in the house. I first kiss my wife huge my 3 boys and I then hit the Wall! Seems like I gave it all out in the woods but once I set foot in the house I am spent. Seems like I need to get in shape not for elk hunting but once I hit the door and start to unpack. I need a vacation form my vacation after elk season every year!!

Very true. I'm normally down about 15-20 lbs. to solid Ethiopian status and I wish I could sleep for 24 hours straight instead of going to work the next day. =)