Please find two photos attached for the purpose of the photo contest - third photo is me on my Rokon, which I used to run up and down the mountain from camp with my Western pack on [note - the only reason why I am not wearing the Western pack in the Rokon picture is because my buddy took it to haul another 80+ lbs of meat off the moutain and gave me his pack to take back to camp].

The attached pictures are from my 2008 Colorado elk hunt. The pictures show your awesome pack in action carrying gear, meat and antlers. We harvested two nice bull elk this trip and the Western made no less than 3 trips packed with around 90lbs of gear and meat up and down three valleys covering about 5 miles each trip (in the pictures you will see small clearing at the top of the next ridge line, that is where we are headed and that would be just one of the three valley crossings). I wore this pack day and night for 10 days and each day hiked at least 8 miles at elevations ranging between 9,000 and 10,000 ft. I did not experience one problem with your pack the entire trip and I beat the snot out of this thing (I did happen to "genius-like" melt a portion of one of the bottom compression straps on my Rokon's exhaust pipe - still works). To my surprise, at the end of such a grueling trip I did not suffer from ANY soreness in my shoulders or back....what a great pack!!!! Also, all of the straps were extremely useful for attaching gear and antlers. My hunting partners were amazed and one of them actually borrowed my Western for another brutal meat haul out of the mountains as his pack was killing both his back and shoulders - more than one of my friends said that they will be carrying a Blacks Creek pack next season.

Lastly, I used the pack more than once to take a quick afternoon nap on and once awoke to find myself in the middle of an entire herd of cow elk - I think they were as shocked as I was when I jumped to my feet after hearing a large log snap 10 feet directly behind me - you see I was hunting an entire valley alone and the next nearest hunter in our group was over 2 miles away and I knew it was either a huge animal of some sort, or a widow maker coming down from the vicious wind storm that leveled one of our tents and mangled massive trees just the night before. All I know is that in an instant all hell broke loose with elk criss-crossing everywhere and crashing through brush like mini bulldozers - I can assure you that I was fully awake after that little bit of fun.

All I can say is that my year round adventures take me into extremely remote places with some of the most unforgiving landscapes on this earth and having confidence in your equipment is a must for both a successful trip and ultimately the peace of mind that no matter what happens, your gear is up to the challenge.

Thanks again,

Tim Moran