Photo By Chuck & Grace Bartlett

Every autumn, Evergreen State hunters have 11 days to participate in one of the West's most challenging, most scenic and most potentially rewarding modern firearms deer seasons. It is the High Buck Hunt, and it opens up six mountainous wilderness and recreation areas to rifle hunters Sept. 15 to 25. The first rifle deer hunt of the year, the High Buck Hunt gives backcountry-savvy hunters a chance at 3-point or better blacktail or mule deer bucks amid some of North America's most dramatic settings.

Depending on where you hunt, you can pursue deer from a classic pack trip on the eastern flanks of the Cascade Mountains, on heather meadows above Hood Canal or among the frothing headwater canyons of Puget Sound's largest rivers. Autumn is the most magnificent time of year in the backcountry, with few insects, shimmering yellow aspen and tamaracks, and huckleberry-emblazoned ridges. The weather can range from snow squalls to blistering sun, but it is usually characterized by warm sunny days and crisp starry nights.

Hunters have the six traditional High Buck destinations in 2006. The Pasayten Wilderness, Lake Chelan Recreation Area, and portions of the Glacier Peak and Alpine Lake wilderness areas contain vast areas of roadless mule deer range on the eastern slopes of the Cascades. On the wetter side of the mountains, hunters target blacktailed deer in the western Glacier Peak and Alpine Lakes wildernesses, and part of the Henry M. Jackson Wilderness west of the Pacific Crest Trail. The Olympic Peninsula's five wilderness areas -- Buckhorn, Brothers, Mount Skokomish, Colonel Bob and Wonder Mountain -- also open for the High Buck Hunt.

Although the settings of these hunts vary dramatically, they all share a number of features. To begin with, deer numbers are low in the high mountains, even during autumn. However, a significant percentage of high country bucks seem to be older, heavily antlered deer. Even the infamously wet Olympic Peninsula is often bone-dry in September, and consequently deer will be concentrated around water sources. Many bucks hang around the edges of timbered meadows at first light and dusk, then bed down during daytime. They like sunny, vegetated slopes above lakes early and late in the day.

The High Buck Hunt isn't for everyone. You must know how to handle a map and compass in addition to GPS. Be familiar with tents, sleeping bags and pads, water filtration and other gear that will make your time in the backcountry somewhat pleasant. Nearly all mountain areas are also "no-fire zones," so you need to understand your pack stove and know how to fix it in the field. If you plan to hunt without a guide or pack stock, you should also know how to skin and bone a deer, and how to keep your knife sharp during the process.

You must be in tiptop physical condition. Carrying gear up steep trails into the wilderness, then hunting across scree slopes and in black timber is grueling. The real work begins when you kill a deer. If you are like me -- over 50 and several pant sizes larger than you were a couple of decades ago -- you might assume that you can perform all the physical activities you could 10 years ago. Don't kid yourself! Unless you spend a lot of time working out, you probably can't.