Hunted with Jim Snyder out of Rifle, CO years ago. We went 4 for 5 on decent bulls and should have gone 5 for 5. Jim is retired now but his son, Trent, and his wife, Cheryl, ran Silver Spur Outfitters, which was a good outfitting business the last time I went in 2012. Looks like they may have sold out now but the business is still going...
I know a lot of the drop camps put people in the same spot all fall so the pressure near camp is constant and not anything I'd want to pay for. The pack out service would be nice but I'd be more confident doing day hunts from the truck in many cases unless hunting a unit that is huge wilderness. I can understand the draw to the experience aspect of getting packed in deep to a comfortable camp, would just hate to get packed into somewhere that has been pounded without numerous good adjacent options.
I'd ask any pack service:
-will hunters be in the same camp prior to you being there?
-what the area surrounding camp is like in regards to allowing for good hunting for a long ways in multiple directions.
Theres a guy thats well liked on bowsite believe his first name is Forest but he has drop camps.I have done probably 6DIY hunts in CO and a couple in NM gives you the freedom of moving but also a chore packing out,If you haven't ever done it talk to people that have and get good info and equipt.
Outfitter set up our spike camp with 2 tents like this - 1 for sleeping and another for cooking.
We had to set up our own privy and shower but we were fairly comfortable. We were able to drive in to the spike camp but it was all walking after that. Outfitter came back with horses to pack out our game. We hunted the first rifle season so nobody hunted ahead of us.
Yep, that'd be my concern. The possibility of paying good $ to get dropped somewhere that the elk aren't keeps me from considering drop camps. I can see the draw to the experience of being in deep, not having to buy/pack/setup camp, and having elk packing service lined up but it's real hard for all of that to overcome having the ability to be mobile until you find elk. That said, I elk hunt every year and am setup to be mobile and I've also never done the CO OTC stuff. I have used a horse packing service to pack out elk and rented pack llamas in the past (both during solo hunts) to help with my limitations of being able to get an elk off the mountain and I like that route.
Yes - We bought our own tent, nanny sacks, etc, and hired a guy to pack us in where we wanted to go in Montana - Bob Marshall Wilderness. If you can decide where you want to go via Satelite scouting you can decide where you want to go….so you have nobody to blame but yourself if you aren’t successful :). We had backpacked in 3 years prior so we were not going in totally blind.
There are alot of places to rent horses or even just pay an outfitter to pack you in.States are different in rules.Some you can't rent any horse others you have to have a permitted outfitter to take horses in