I know that there was a gentleman on this site that offered plains game backpack hunts in Namibia. Unfortunately, it looks as if he has passed away.

Do any of you know if there are wilderness backpack hunts being offered in Namibia. I’m interested in a true pack in roadless hunt.

I have never been to Namibia and do not know anything about it. However, it does seem like these opportunities may exist.

Thank you for any help

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Philip Hennings of Khomas Highland Hunting may be able to help - he has some remote concessions and does some wilderness hunts for oryx, springbok and zebra.

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I can’t see how a true backpack hunt would be feasible, unless you are only going to hunt 1 animal. Even that would be a real challenge. How would you deal with the meat and hides in what is essentially a desert or savanna environment?

You shoot the animal. You radio or, more likely phone the crew. They show up with a truck and take the meat and trophy away. You traipse onward looking for something else.

This is Africa, where labor costs are the least of their problems.

That’s your idea of a backpack hunt? Why not leave the backpack behind, walk into the bush and shoot something, call the truck and hitch a ride home. My idea of a backpack hunt is to leave civilization with enough supplies to sustain you for X number of days, hunt, then walk home. The poster asked for a pack in, roadless hunt. That’s simply not feasible in Namibia or elsewhere.

I know Kai-Uwe Denker conducted this type of hunt, but I’ve heard he has “retired”, I believe his son continues this tradition. You might look up Hagen Denker on the internet.

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
I can’t see how a true backpack hunt would be feasible, unless you are only going to hunt 1 animal. Even that would be a real challenge. How would you deal with the meat and hides in what is essentially a desert or savanna environment?

I have no idea how it’s done but I do know another outfitter had offered a hunt like this.

I am just considering something different. I would be fine hunting just a few animals.

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
I can’t see how a true backpack hunt would be feasible, unless you are only going to hunt 1 animal. Even that would be a real challenge. How would you deal with the meat and hides in what is essentially a desert or savanna environment?

Here is a very old posting that offered a hunt that would interest me. I realize this outfitter is not offering hunts like these anymore:

http://forums.accuratereloadin...961030791#8961030791

quote:

Originally posted by Jason P:

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
I can’t see how a true backpack hunt would be feasible, unless you are only going to hunt 1 animal. Even that would be a real challenge. How would you deal with the meat and hides in what is essentially a desert or savanna environment?

I have no idea how it’s done but I do know another outfitter had offered a hunt like this.

I am just considering something different. I would be fine hunting just a few animals.

You might mean John Wambach. He has passed away.
He had sold his farm in the Erongo before also.

I know where he hunted and I organise hunts on the neighboring farm. You can walk your ass off in these mountains, but it's not a real backpack hunt unless you do it on purpose.

Cheers,
Dennis

I know it isn't quite a backpack hunt but at one point Kowas Hunting Safaris was looking at doing horseback hunts in Namibia. I am not sure if they ever started doing it but it might be worth checking that out?

I appreciate all of your help. Certainly, some great advice.

Dennis:

What you have described interests me. I just want to hunt a free-range and remote area, something different. I have hunted South Africa (which I enjoyed) but would like to do something a
bit different.

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
That’s your idea of a backpack hunt? Why not leave the backpack behind, walk into the bush and shoot something, call the truck and hitch a ride home. My idea of a backpack hunt is to leave civilization with enough supplies to sustain you for X number of days, hunt, then walk home. The poster asked for a pack in, roadless hunt. That’s simply not feasible in Namibia or elsewhere.

Thats what I've done. You get the feeling of hunting alone and nobody leads you up to the game and yet one still enjoy the luxery to call someone when a 400ibs game needs to to "towed".

Not Namibia but Zambia has a thriving backpack hunting industry... just not a legal one! Actually, some of the trips that local poachers do could stand right up there with the Canadian trappers adventure stories if only someone would chronicle them. And you've got to be made of some pretty tough stuff to hike an 80kg load of dried hippo meat up the vertical Muchinga escarpment out of the Luangwa valley...

You may even be able to find a fit PH willing to park his diesel-powered hunting mobility assistance device but the search would be long and hard, even if porters could be easily enough recruited from the muzzle-loading fraternity.

Regarding Namibia, this would still be your best bet for a true wilderness hunt with relative freedom. You'd probably have more luck with the ranches that cater to local hunters, as they are less encumbered by insurance and other considerations (and there is a small number of Namibian and South African adventurers who hunt like this). But where to start such a search?

quote:

Originally posted by jdollar:
That’s your idea of a backpack hunt? Why not leave the backpack behind, walk into the bush and shoot something, call the truck and hitch a ride home. My idea of a backpack hunt is to leave civilization with enough supplies to sustain you for X number of days, hunt, then walk home. The poster asked for a pack in, roadless hunt. That’s simply not feasible in Namibia or elsewhere.

Actually, I have no interest in a backpack hunt. I did talk to a Scandinavian, I think, in the Frankfurt Airport about ten years ago. He had just done a "Backpack" hunt in Namibia. And while he had visions of him and the PH boldly hiking across the bush, followed by a line of porters carrying the camp on their heads, what he got was them walking from camp to camp while everything else traveled by bakkie. It sounded like. not surprisingly, all the game got shot within sight of a road or at least a two-track also.

John Wambach described to me the walking from spike camp to spike camp as how he did his elephant hunts. I assume he did PG in the same manner.

Mark

quote:

You can walk your ass off in these mountains, but it's not a real backpack hunt unless you do it on purpose.

I hunted Mountain Zebra, Damaraland dik dik and Kalahari Springbok with Westfalen Safaris in Namibia a few years ago. The amount of hiking and walking that I did would have qualified for a mountain back pack hunt. We walked everywhere, especially in the mountains hunting mountain zebra. I finally shot a nice mountain zebra way up in the mountains and they had to literally cut a road up a 'canyon' to get within a mile of the kill. That was as close as they could get. We then packed it out. The rocky ground in that part of Namibia was murder on the feet and ankles. You might contact John at Westfalen and see if he does anything that you are interested in. If hiking and walking is your thing you will do all that you want with him.

I heard of this being done in Tanzania a while back.

They called it walking safaris.

Yes! That is up in the Mountains in Masailand for buffalo. You can do it with porters or donkeys.

Rihner Josh and Michel Mantheakis offer these.

Mark

I think Richard Bonham did too.

He told me about it himself.