feclnogn
New member
Affordable pack solutions for horse and mule men with only 100 dollars
Part 1 of 2
For this review I will be covering some cost saving techniques to help you get started with back country packing using either horses or mules, with mules I believe being the better choice as I think they are a little smarter. If you have ever wanted to start packing with horses or mules you may have been intimidated by the cost of the supplies. Many pack strings can cost upward of twenty thousand dollars depending on the size of the string. Once you figure in the cost of the livestock, packsaddles, panniers, and the myriad of other supplies needed you can plainly see the huge start up costs involved. Well in this review we will show you how to outfit your pack animal for fewer than one hundred bucks.
One of the first things you need to decide is what type of packsaddle you will be using. Two of the more popular styles are the Decker and good ole fashion Saw Buck. The big draw back to these saddles is the cost, a good Decker can cost up to six hundred dollars and a good sawbuck will run you several hundred thus exceeding our budget of one hundred bucks. For our review we will be using the “Greenhorn Modified Pack Saddle”. You can see these in use all over the west; while not very pretty they get the job done. A greenhorn packsaddle is nothing more than a regular saddle minus the rider. You can find these Greenhorn Modified saddles for around 25 bucks and sometimes cheaper. The best place to find these saddles are at rodeos, what you need to look for are the team ropers or calf ropers who have just lost their asses in the last go round, they will be needing some cash to get to the next rodeo and will often be willing to sell some of their older saddles for twenty to fifty dollars thus keeping us within our budget of one hundred bucks. If you live on a border state as I do you can also pick up these saddles on the border, often you can trade a bottle of Tequila for them and that is about 15 bucks for the cheap stuff.
So now that we have our packsaddle we will need some panniers. Once again the cost of a good set of panniers will exceed our budget so we will be using an affordable substitute. The panniers we will be using can be purchased at your local Wal-Mart or K-mart for around 6 bucks. What we will be using for this review are Glad 40 gallon garbage bags, Hefty is also a solid choice but for some reason I prefer the Glad bags. While at the store also be sure to pick up generous amounts of rope. Now what you do is take the garbage bags and fill them full of the items you need for your hunting trip and then tie them on to the saddle horn. You now have a complete set of working pack bags and we have managed to keep it within our budget of one hundred dollars.
This will conclude the first part of this review. I will be heading to the mountains this weekend and will give a full report early next week on the results. I however have run into a few problems that I hope to have worked out soon, the main one being the Dutch ovens keep falling through the garbage bags. I think the way to combat this would be to keep “double bagging” until the ovens quit falling through. As for right now I am heading to the doctor to fix my broken toes.
Stay tuned for the final review.
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[This message has been edited by feclnogn (edited 12-22-2000).]
Part 1 of 2
For this review I will be covering some cost saving techniques to help you get started with back country packing using either horses or mules, with mules I believe being the better choice as I think they are a little smarter. If you have ever wanted to start packing with horses or mules you may have been intimidated by the cost of the supplies. Many pack strings can cost upward of twenty thousand dollars depending on the size of the string. Once you figure in the cost of the livestock, packsaddles, panniers, and the myriad of other supplies needed you can plainly see the huge start up costs involved. Well in this review we will show you how to outfit your pack animal for fewer than one hundred bucks.
One of the first things you need to decide is what type of packsaddle you will be using. Two of the more popular styles are the Decker and good ole fashion Saw Buck. The big draw back to these saddles is the cost, a good Decker can cost up to six hundred dollars and a good sawbuck will run you several hundred thus exceeding our budget of one hundred bucks. For our review we will be using the “Greenhorn Modified Pack Saddle”. You can see these in use all over the west; while not very pretty they get the job done. A greenhorn packsaddle is nothing more than a regular saddle minus the rider. You can find these Greenhorn Modified saddles for around 25 bucks and sometimes cheaper. The best place to find these saddles are at rodeos, what you need to look for are the team ropers or calf ropers who have just lost their asses in the last go round, they will be needing some cash to get to the next rodeo and will often be willing to sell some of their older saddles for twenty to fifty dollars thus keeping us within our budget of one hundred bucks. If you live on a border state as I do you can also pick up these saddles on the border, often you can trade a bottle of Tequila for them and that is about 15 bucks for the cheap stuff.
So now that we have our packsaddle we will need some panniers. Once again the cost of a good set of panniers will exceed our budget so we will be using an affordable substitute. The panniers we will be using can be purchased at your local Wal-Mart or K-mart for around 6 bucks. What we will be using for this review are Glad 40 gallon garbage bags, Hefty is also a solid choice but for some reason I prefer the Glad bags. While at the store also be sure to pick up generous amounts of rope. Now what you do is take the garbage bags and fill them full of the items you need for your hunting trip and then tie them on to the saddle horn. You now have a complete set of working pack bags and we have managed to keep it within our budget of one hundred dollars.
This will conclude the first part of this review. I will be heading to the mountains this weekend and will give a full report early next week on the results. I however have run into a few problems that I hope to have worked out soon, the main one being the Dutch ovens keep falling through the garbage bags. I think the way to combat this would be to keep “double bagging” until the ovens quit falling through. As for right now I am heading to the doctor to fix my broken toes.
Stay tuned for the final review.
------------------
[This message has been edited by feclnogn (edited 12-22-2000).]
