How to Pack Out an Elk: Loads, Miles and Meat Care

A bull elk is about 200 pounds of boned meat and three or four loads. What a university study measured, Colorado's meat rules, and how to plan the carry.

An elk on the ground is a second hunt. It is longer than the first, it is done tired, and often in the dark. Hunters who plan the shot and not the carry are the ones who lose meat. Almost all of the planning can be done before the season, because the numbers are known.

How much meat is on an elk

The University of Wyoming weighed hunter-killed elk, boned them out in its meat laboratory, and published what came off. ^[1] The working rule from that study: about half of the field-dressed figure is boneless meat.

Field-dressed in the study means gutted, with the head and hide still on and the lower legs removed.

Three cautions from the same bulletin: ^[1]

• A single animal can differ from its age class by 20 pounds of meat or more.
• The 50% figure came from carcasses kept clean and mostly shot through the ribs. A meat locker that processed 56 hunters' elk averaged 43%. Shoulder and hindquarter hits, dirt and fly strike all cost meat.
• For a mule deer the same laboratory found a field-dressed average of 114 pounds for bucks and 93 for does, and about 55 and 44 pounds of boneless cuts. ^[2]

Turn pounds into loads

Add to the meat whatever else is coming out: the head and antlers of a bull, the hide if you want it, and bone if you carry quarters whole.

Then divide by what one person will carry on that ground. Sixty pounds is a common planning figure for a fit adult with a real pack frame. Many hunters carry more on a trail and should plan on less in deadfall or at 10,000 feet.

A 3 to 4 year old bull, boned out, with head and antlers:

• 200 pounds of meat plus about 30 for the head comes to 230 pounds.
• At 60 pounds a load that is four loads.
• Two people make two trips each. One person makes four.

Four trips for one person over two miles is 14 miles of walking, 8 of them loaded. The pack-out calculator does this for your distance, climb and help, and gives the hours.

What Colorado requires you to bring out

These come from the 2026 Colorado Big Game brochure. Read the page yourself before you hunt. ^[3]

• The edible meat. At a minimum, the four quarters, the tenderloins and the backstraps count as edible meat that must be cared for.
• Evidence of sex. It is illegal to have or transport a big game carcass without evidence of sex naturally attached. If you quarter or bone the animal, it must stay attached to a quarter or another major part, and all portions must be transported together.
• A bull's head. The head or skull plate with both antlers naturally attached must accompany a bull's carcass in camp or in transit.
• The carcass tag. Do not sign or tear it before the animal is down. Once it is, the tag goes on.

Boning out is the lightest way to carry an elk, and the Wyoming bulletin recommends boneless cutting where chronic wasting disease exists. ^[1] It is also the easiest way to cut off the evidence of sex by mistake. Decide which piece carries it before you start cutting.

Cool the meat before the first load leaves

The same study took the temperature of the elk hunters delivered to the laboratory. Deep in the hindquarter it averaged 88.5 degrees Fahrenheit on arrival, on days when the high averaged 55. ^[1] A cool day does not cool a whole elk. The hide and the mass of the quarters hold the heat in.

What follows from that:

• Get the hide off and the quarters apart as soon as you can.
• Hang or lay the pieces in shade with air moving around them, off the ground, before anyone shoulders a pack.
• Bone-in quarters hold heat at the hip and shoulder joints. Open them up if the weather is warm.
• Use game bags. They keep flies and dirt off while letting the surface dry.

The meat that goes out last has waited the longest. Carry the pieces that hold the most heat first.

Plan it before you sit

1. Measure the carry from each seat. Distance and climb back to the truck, not to camp. A seat far below the road is easy to reach in the morning and hard to leave with a load.
2. Count the daylight. An evening shot leaves almost none. Know which seats you will only hunt in the morning if you are alone.
3. Decide what "too far" is. If a seat means more hours than you have help for, either line up help, plan to hang the meat overnight and finish in the morning, or pick a nearer seat.
4. Pack for it. Game bags, cord, a second headlamp, and a frame that carries a load.

What this does not tell you

• The meat figures are from Wyoming elk, with six bulls and six cows boned in the laboratory and age class figures from an older study. Colorado elk of the same age may run a little different.
• The load and pace figures are planning allowances. They are not a measure of what you can carry.
• This is not a butchering guide. It tells you how much there is to move and what the rules say must come out.

Every FilledTag plan gives the distance and climb from each seat back to the truck, so you know what a shot there costs before you take it. Custom plans are available at https://www.filledtag.com/plans.html.

Sources

1. University of Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station (2003). The Elk Carcass, bulletin B-594R. https://www.wyoextension.org/agpubs/pubs/B-594R.pdf
2. University of Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station (2003). The Mule Deer Carcass, bulletin B-589R. https://www.wyoextension.org/agpubs/pubs/B-589R.pdf
3. Colorado Parks and Wildlife, 2026 Colorado Big Game Hunting brochure: Illegal Activities (page 15), Carcass Tags, Evidence of Sex and Transporting Game (page 16), Antler-Point Restrictions and Handling Antlers in Camp (page 36). https://cpw.state.co.us/big-game-brochure