Here's the plan. A walking safari down the Wuku River to Lake Rukwa. Say a week to get to the lake and a week at a camp on the lake. Anyone done something like this?

I mean, are you used to backpacking? Do you really plan on carrying everything you need for two weeks on your back? Can you physically handle a 70-100 pound pack and walk miles with it?

I'm not saying you can't do it, but at your age, I think you should re-compute. At least hire someone to carry the other stuff and you carry your rifle and water.

Are you really wanting a backpack hunt or a hunt with porter?

A true back pack hunt for any length of time seems damn near impossible to me. Just carrying enough water would be a difficult chore.

I've been on several full-blown backpack hunts and the longest duration for a "true" backpack hunt was 12 days.

If I had to carry all my water with me, a trip exceeding a couple days would be almost impossible. I did that in Colorado for bighorn and we ran out of water on day #3. Thankfully I killed my ram that day and we made it back to the river before we died.

I'm 62 and completed a bighorn backpack hunt in Wyoming last year but we had access to water everywhere. We only had to carry a small bottle or two at any given time.

My first such trip was in 1981 for Dall sheep. They get tougher with the passing of years.

Very do-able but they are never easy.
Zeke

I agree with Zeke.

I have yet to see a stream in Africa that I would drink out of.

Interestingly , there was just a Petersen's hunting episode on where they backpacked in Namibia.

10 - 14 days is doable. Backpack hunting is all we do here.
70 lb would be a heavy pack, theres something wrong if your carrying more than that for sure.

In New Zealand we don't have to carry water though.

Are you walking back out? Is the terrain easy or mountains passes etc?

quote:

Originally posted by ZekeShikar:
I've been on several full-blown backpack hunts and the longest duration for a "true" backpack hunt was 12 days.

If I had to carry all my water with me, a trip exceeding a couple days would be almost impossible. I did that in Colorado for bighorn and we ran out of water on day #3. Thankfully I killed my ram that day and we made it back to the river before we died.

I'm 62 and completed a bighorn backpack hunt in Wyoming last year but we had access to water everywhere. We only had to carry a small bottle or two at any given time.

My first such trip was in 1981 for Dall sheep. They get tougher with the passing of years.

Very do-able but they are never easy.
Zeke

+1

quote:

Originally posted by larryshores:
Are you really wanting a backpack hunt or a hunt with porter?

A true back pack hunt for any length of time seems damn near impossible to me. Just carrying enough water would be a difficult chore.

You'd need water purification. You can't carry that much water on your back.

I used to go back into the wilderness areas for a week at a time; but anymore it's too much of a hassle. A vehicle left at the trailhead is subject to vandalism and the trails are shared with hikers, who generally are anti-hunting so they consider themselves virtuous with their slurs. But with freeze-dried food plus a lot of food that can be packed dry (rice, instant potatoes, noodles) it's possible to pack in what's needed for a week and keep the pack less than 70 pounds (including rifle & binoculars).

I do quite a bit of remote area back-pack hunting in the Alpine region of my home State here in Australia.

After many years of fine tuning I have limited myself down to a maximum of a 10kg (22lbs) pack of gear plus rifle, binoculars and walking staff.

Where I hunt there is plenty of water so I carry a "life-straw" which provides countless number of pure filtrated drinks from streams whilst hunting. For cooking I collect water and boil it as needed, usually on a daily basis.

All of my gear has been severely "minimized" over the years, as personally i'd rather do without most things as opposed to carrying "luxuries".

I take pre-weighed sealed bags of 150gms of breakfast with powdered milk already mixed and dehydrated Back Country meals for dinner.
Lunches are musily bars and chocolate bars.

I also carry powdered energy drink supplement for drinking.

My tent weighs 1.8kgs but is EXTREMELY small, you have to crawl in it backwards.
Light-weight sleeping bag and a small rip-stop tarp for cover and that's it.

I'm not saying it's luxury living but I've been away for up to 10 days at a time living like this.

Really makes you appreciate the comforts of home, let me tell you !!

Not sure how any/all of this would apply in Africa.

+ 1 on everything Paul mentioned.
Got my gear down to around 15kgs.
You really do not need much, it's as much a discipline as an adventure.
Our single biggest issue is the wx.
There is some extremely clever and well design lightweight equipment available that is well worth the investment if you are going to make a habit out of 7-10 backpack trips.
I'm usually on my own which presents challenges in itself.

I had enough of that to last me a lifetime in RVN.

RVN- Ah, those were the days- all expenses paid hunting safari that lasted 12 months and 20 days- what more could anyone ask for???

Ray,

Rangers ETS from there, or make the medevac flight to Zama, and then home.

25 months and 10 days, 16 in Chu Lai, and 9 or so in Danang.