For you Western guys amusement I will give you the play by play of my hunt.
Out of bed at 4:00 AM , it's raining, going to leave camp at 5:00 but wait around until 5:30 due to the rain, trailer the horses a mile or two down the road. Stops raining just as we mount up, weathers warm, low 40's. Ride in the dark for a while and see a cow moose just as it's getting daylight. Keep riding, ride through bugling bull elk on each side of us, 100-150 yards away. Finally get to the high basins where it opens up and the mule deer are supposed to be, see one doe, next basin nothing, third basin nothing.
Decide to ride up a brushy point and see if we can kick one out. Guide sees two bucks take off, I don't see them but guide says one is a shooter. Try to get off the horse in a hurry, foot hangs a little it the stirrup and when it comes loose I fall on my rear, no harm done. (Now I am 5'-8" tall with short legs and I am given this draft horse to ride, the stirrups are about at the top of my shoulders, now 20 years ago I could have lifted my legs that high but at 57 they don't go that high. So I have been jumping off the horse and finding rocks to stand on to get on him.) Bucks have hung up behind some spruce trees. Get my rifle out of scabbard and chamber a round, get shooting sticks out and sit down. Ask guide if the deer were above or below a line where the vegetation changed and he says they are right at the line. Looking across the valley(that I would call a hollow) it looks like a long way but get the range finder out and it's only 200 yds. Waited for what seemed like an hour but was probably a couple of minutes and the bucks came out. Get them in the scope but one is behind the other, then the biggest one steps forward and I put the crosshairs on him and pull the trigger, he takes off up the hill for about 20 yards and then comes rolling back down, hunts over. Look at my watch and it's 9:30. Get back to camp about 2:30.
We rode in about five miles and gained about 2,000 feet in elevation. Camp elevation was at 7,100 and killed the deer at about 9,000.
