Bet your tracker that he cannot lift it onto his shoulders.

These guys are made out of spring steel. The amount they are able to carry on their backs is simply amazing. The leopard in this photo weighed 180 pounds.

"spring steel"

Exactly how I describe them. Im a small guy for an American. I was actually about the same size as my last PH and tracker. I do some sort of workout almost every day, and still they were both a lot stronger than me. It is absolutely amazing how much they can carry.

quote:

Originally posted by subsailor74:
These guys are made out of spring steel. The amount they are able to carry on their backs is simply amazing. The leopard in this photo weighed 180 pounds.

My god that is a serious cat. Well done.

They are tough and amazingly strong

Dave, great big-ole pumpkin-headed cat! Mike, what the hell were you shooting? You took it's head clean off!

Working out in a gym is no substitute for living a hard outdoors life. I have a buddy who grew up dirt poor, ranching, outfitting, packing and guiding his whole life. He was able to smoke just about any and all comers in just about any athletic activity you possibly imagine.

Andrew, lets see a trophy pic of that hog.....

I carried backpacks all my life guiding and in the military now i have my hips and knees with arthrosis ,i believe most of white people arent so well adapted to carry heavy weigths in the back .

I was never sure whether it was really was a CMS tradition or a practical joke, but Myles insisted that I carry my own leopard out to the cruiser a quarter of a mile away over more or less level ground. Once the trackers lifted it up on my 70-year old shoulders, carrying the cat, 140 lb. give or take, was not that difficult. It was kind of primal to feel the blood running down my back. However, if I had to lift it up myself, I suspect it would still be there.

One thing that everyone has failed to mention is that not only are the local guys tremendously strong for their size, but they usually do all that physical work on a fraction of the daily food intake that we westerners eat !!!!
They are incredibly efficient machines and we are extremely wasteful.

Go into the tribal areas and see what the women can carry on their heads - that's an eye-opener.

We live longer and have less breakdown than bush Africans. Having grown up in Ethiopia, leaving for my passport country in 1975, I've long ago gotten over not being able to work / do the same things the local kids did as routine.

When I attempted to "assist" in carrying a mountain reedbuck, the tracker half my age said it wasn't necessary. But he was courteous enough to let me find out I should leave it to him. Next time, I did!

There's a reason we left the forests of Europe and advanced technologically. Brute force is better left to those who take it to the fields of sports.