Steepwalker Apparel

10/13/2022

Dedication, perseverance, and patience. Mark passed on multiple smaller bucks this season with the goal of taking a mature Pronghorn Buck. Our unit is not known for the monster bucks seen in AZ or NM, but this buck is in the top 10% of the bucks we see every year. Congrats on a great stalk and an awesome buck Mark!

05/04/2022

Spring Thunder Chickens! What a great way to tune up with your diaphragm calls and feed the obsession during the off season. Who else loves firing these birds up?

04/28/2022

New Product Launch.

We’re super excited to be launching our Hunters Keepsake wall art to display your memories and hunts.

Our graphic designers will render your hunting unit or last adventure using satellite imagery and old fashioned artistry to create beautiful, consistent and eye attracting art.

It’s a simple process to order these images. Link in the bio.

04/22/2022

The African San are persistence hunters that have evolved over time to now use multiple techniques to catch, hunt, and kill game.

Persistence hunting is the act of using our main humanoid advantage over nearly all wild game, ultra long distance stamina. This advantage allows the San to outrun and fatigue different game until the prey can no longer continue. The San then stalk in close to make the final kill.

The San’s optimal hunting period is mid-day when African temperatures can reach in excess of 108*. The hunters will initiate a running attack by using wind, known game routes, and a relay of running hunters to force the prey to literally fall over from exhaustion. Hunts can last over 5 hours and span more than 35 miles.

The San also used poison tipped arrows to shorten the time of a chase. In one article I read that for Antelope sized game, the poison takes 3-5 hours before the game is finally immobilized enough to be killer. However, for larger species of game, it can take up to three days before the hunt is over.

04/14/2022

A Frenchman who lived among uthe Roe.

Geoffroy Delorme, a native of Normandy, France was home schooled until at the age of 16, decided to step into the woods.

Over the next seven years, Geoffrey would live off the earth and only return home ever so often for essential needs. He studied Native Americans and used many of there survival techniques to get by every day.

Although not a hunter and clearly a pacifist who loves nature, his story is quiet remarkable as he modestly explains his run ins with hypothermia, extreme fatigue, hunger, and hallucinations.

He learned to live among the native Roe Deer and befriended several extremely intelligent deer who he would interact with daily. One of his favorite, a Doe named “Six Points” was shot by a hunter and he witnessed the whole thing happen.

After many years of living of the land with with his family of Roe Deer, he returned home to find has family had left, moved away and locked the doors to his childhood home.

Story in the bio. Photos by Geoffroy Delorme

04/12/2022

A Frenchman who lived among the Roe.

Geoffroy Delorme, a native of Normandy, France was home schooled until at the age of 16, decided to step into the woods.

Over the next seven years, Geoffrey would live off the earth and only return home ever so often for essential needs. He studied Native Americans and used survival techniques to get by every day.

Although not a hunter and clearly a pacifist who loves nature, his story is quiet remarkable as he modestly explains his run ins with hypothermia, extreme fatigue, and hallucinations.

He learned to live among the native Roe Deer and witnessed soon befriended several who he would interact with daily. One of his favorite, a Doe named “6 Points Star” was shot by a hunter and he say the whole thing happen.

After many years of living of the land, with his family of Roe Deer, he returned home to find has family had left, moved away and locked the doors to his childhood home.

Story in the bio. Photos by Geoffroy Delorme

04/08/2022

02/27/2022

Soft times make soft people.

02/03/2022

Many consider Asher “Dick” Kelty to be the OG of the modern load bearing pack. For your backpack hunters out there, it’s always good to know your lineage and your pack says a lot about you.

Although Kelty isn’t a widely excepted premium hunter’s pack, the guts and technology are used by all the big dogs today that you spend a quarter of your paycheck on.

Prior to WWI, backpacks were not referred to as such, instead they were known as or packsacks.

Although backpacks can be dated back to 3300BC, it was Dick Kelty who is credited with the futuristic designs you now take for granted.

Kelty, originally a carpenter began to make external aluminum framed packs out of his garage with his wife Nena in the 1950s. It’s reported that his first lot of orders totaled 29 and used surplus US Army parachute fabric throughout the main bag. This was a lucrative moment for Kelty because within several years, his designs were the best in the world.

Although Steepwalker is partial to American craftsmen, it’s argued that Ake Nordin, the inventor of Fjallraven also made his first external pack around the same time.

The D4 pack (pic. 1, D4 predecessor circa, 1960) is widely considered the first iconic pack of Kelty and began production in the mid 1960s.

In pic. 2, you can see an alpinist sporting a late 1960ish BB5 pack. This Kelty aluminum framed pack was the pinnacle of high end gear that even nerdy alpinist utilized.

These packs would allow a hiker or hunter to carry upwards of 80lbs and had many technological advances still in use today. This included a fabric hip belt and load bearing strap; easy access, top zipped accessory pouches, and a main, top down loading design for a wide range of equipment storing needs.

These packs sold for a mere $27.00 dollars but did not include the $3.85 frame extension or additional custom sewn external pockets at $3.25 each.

A modern ruck can cost in excess of $600.00 and weighs less than 7lbs. Packs today utilize polymer and carbon fiber internal frames which along with space age nylon fabric yield incredibly strong and durable designs.

Part of me wants to eBay one of these vintage packs to hike around like my dad.

02/01/2022

Posted • In Vietnam, bows and arrows were still in use by US forces and indigenous people of the Vietnamese central highlands otherwise known as Montagnard.

Although I can’t find any records indicating bows were issued to US forces, I have found several instances where they were either sent over by family or made using local goods.

In this first photo (AP Photo), Lt. Cmdr. Donald Sheppard aims a flaming arrow at a bamboo hut concealing a fortified Viet Cong bunker on the banks of the Bassac River. This photo was taken on December 8th, 1967. Commander Sheppard reported that using a bow with a kerosene soaked tip was highly effective when deployed from a river boat.

In the second photo, a Green Beret of an unknown ODA unit poses with a self-bow made from indigenous materials and camouflaged. Special Forces would use bows and arrows to conceal positions while infiltrating VC patrol bases. The effective range of the bows was generally 25 yards, or about 1/3 of a standard issue Browning 1911 A1.

01/31/2022

As the pre-conflict tensions in the east continue to heat up (pic. 1 NY Times), we thought we would share some non-destructive intel about the native Ukrainian lands and the hunting practices that take place within her border.

Ukraine is home to a wide range of species popular for hunting and sustenance. Divided into biological zones, the country ranges from temperate grasslands to alpine expanses with its tallest peak topping out at 6,700ft above sea level. Conservation of Ukraine has been difficult over the years as illegal hunting, poaching, and logging has plagued much of Ukraine’s country side for decades.

The vast majority of Ukraine’s heartland is part of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe in Eastern Europe (expansive temperate and semiarid grasslands) which expands from Kazakhstan to Bulgaria. This area is home to Manchurian sika (pic. 2), roe deer, wolf, fox, hare, lynx and a small population of endangered elk and moose (pic. 4). In the southwestern borders of Ukraine, the Carpathian Mountains extend from Romania through Ukraine and into Slovakia and Poland. Mouflon (pic.3), Red Deer, bear, wild boar and Lynx can be found in the second largest mountain range in Europe.

In researching the biogeography and wildlife of Ukraine, it was impressed on me how much World War I, World War II, and especially - the Soviet occupation of Ukraine disrupted and reshaped its natural habitats and wildlife over the past century.

Most big game hunting in Ukraine takes place between September and February and is highly regulated. Much of the Countries hunting can only be accessed by guides and range between $3,000 and $7,500 USD which includes flights.