*This is Part 2 of a recent Colorado archery elk hunt.

The older I get, the higher and the steeper the mountains get.  

When I was younger and full of boundless energy the mountains were still a formidable opponent. At the end of the day, I would look back at my effort and claim victory over the highlands.

As an aging hunter, the battle is the same, but the results have changed. The seasons pass, the joints age and the margin of victory widens in the favor of the mountains.  

That was a discussion elk brother Dan, real brother Whammer and I had while out in Colorado. As we hiked up and the down the elk mountains, we devised a guide to quantify our efforts. The loss or gain in altitude and distance covered, equaled the “feels like” distance. Maybe a better way to say that is the hiking version of the wind chill factor. We came up with the VPI (Vertical Pain Index).

We actually started talking about it three days into out eight-day hunt. Hiking on the west slope of the Continental Divide seemed to have a thousand feet drop or gain for every mile traveled. To simplify the math, we decided to use one mile for our scale. 

So here is how the VPI works. If you’re traveling one mile up the mountain at a 10-degree slope, the feels like distance covered is actually 1.5 miles. That 1.5 VPI is also assuming that you’re carrying a 20-pound day hunting pack on your back. If it’s raining or you’re making that hike in the dark, the VPI goes up to 1.75. If you’re hauling out a meat pack full of elk, that VPI swells to 2.5.  

Where we hunted, the area was split between a burn area from a fire in 2020, and the green timber that was miraculously spared. Both areas also offered up their own challenges which also influenced the VPI. The green areas were at times almost jungle-like as we made our way through, squeezing in and around thick pine trees. The burn areas comprised of half-burned logs scattered about like giant Pixy Stix. It was almost like a slow-motion football training drill with knees high and unstable footing. The VPI in those scenarios varied depending on the severity of the conditions.  

Incidentally, if you’re traveling down the mountain the VPI does go up but only if the slope is a steep climb down. Elk brother Dan and I got the best of both: an incline and a decline VPI on an elk stalk that took us straight down one drainage and straight up the other side. At one point he looked at his watch and proclaimed “130!” 

“It can’t be that late,” I countered.

“No, my heart rate,” he replied.

We kept going until his heart rate reached 140. The VPI on that hike up was X2 of the actual distance covered.

There was something that we failed to consider until we found ourselves in the situation. We were hiking up to a location to gauge the next drainage when out of the blue a bull elk bugled. Now it’s much, much easier hiking up to a bugle versus just hiking up. Chasing a bugle makes a mile hike seem like only a half mile hike and it is accomplished in a fraction of the time as well. We never caught up with the bull but the climb up that slope was done at record pace.

The last factor when considering the VPI is age. When I first started elk hunting in the mountains, I wasn’t exactly a young man, but I still had a lot of game in me. I still have game, just not as much as I’d like. We don’t age backwards, meaning the VPI goes up every year whether we like it or not.

At the end of the day, not much can cure the VPI aside from a pile of elk and a really good night’s sleep. Elk brother Dan and I did find some temporary relief and it had been staring at our feet through most of our 5-plus mile hike: a cold mountain stream. My only regret is that we didn’t stop a couple of times to enjoy the VPI therapy.

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