Into drier country

While it was tempting to stay in the area where I'd seen four small bucks in 48 hours, I was starting to enjoy moving around to explore new areas and wanted to keep that going. Some country I could see far in the distance from a recent overlook appeared inviting through binoculars, so I checked the map, found that it was public, and drove on there in a roundabout way that included scouting access points and hunter pressure in several spots.

The country backroads presented one beautiful view after another.





As I neared the new spot, I passed several dried creeks and realized it's quite a bit more arid than where I was before. Near sunset I arrived at the dead end of a faint hint of a road overlooking the promising slope I'd glassed from afar.




Here was the view I had come for, a craggy mountainside draped in mountain mahogany.



I picked it apart with my spotting scope and binos all evening, but I didn't see a single deer, elk, or moose. For the morning, I moved a short distance to glass another promising area from a position where light from the east would work in my favor.




I also saw a few deer, pretty far in the distance in the views below, but none were obviously bucks:




As in many places I hunted, there were more elk than deer, or at least they were more visible:



I'm very new to such dry country, and I learned an important lesson: watch where you kneel and sit. Good thing I had tweezers.