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Hunters who fancy some “tracking snow” for North Dakota’s deer gun season got their wish … and then some.

I’m not opposed to it. But from where we stand, glassing deer nearly a mile east of us on the entrance to a two-track that dead ends where federal and state lands butt up against one another, there’s easily more than a foot of snow on the level and closer to 2 feet or more where it’s drifted in.

This much snow carpeting the landscape with more than half of the deer season in front of us changes things. While the deer do stand out against the white landscape making them much easier to locate, they’re bunched up near cover and food a considerable hike, even in snowshoes, which we don’t own, from the main gravel road. Either we find a way to them and worry about getting the dead animal back to the pickup later, or simply call it a day and ponder the what ifs on the hour-long drive back to town.

Before I can say out loud that it’s doable, that the wind is right for intercepting the deer between cover and food if we hurry, my son is throwing on an extra layer of orange and stuffing extra ammunition into his front pocket.

It appears I’m sitting this one out.

I argue to no one from the front seat of my pickup with the windows rolled up and the heater turned to a comfortable setting, that, yeah, two hunters sneaking across the landscape are likely easier to spot than one and it’s probably foolish to harvest two deer under the circumstances. So, Jack, going alone, makes sense.

Truth is, we both knew without saying it that I would simply slow him down.

First, over the fence, then around a cattail-ringed slough where snow has piled and will remain until spring. He’s hiking mostly uphill now, and I lose him briefly when he dips into a fold in the landscape that goes without notice until you watch someone hike in and out of it.

Without binoculars from this distance, he looks like this lone, colorful dot seemingly moving imperceptibly, but with a destination in mind. I’m envious of the distance his 19-year-old legs have eaten in the snow in what seems like minutes.

I want to text, tell him what the deer are doing, how things look to be unfolding from where I sit. I don’t, knowing already how this is going to end.

Through binoculars, I watch him kneel, shoulder his rifle, but I don’t hear the shot.

“I’m gonna need help,” he texts.

“I know. Let me figure it out.”

I’ve taken a dead end section line that runs between the PLOTS land he’s hunting and the private land where the deer are heading to feed. We drove the trail opening weekend, pre-snowstorm, without incident, but now I have it in four-wheel, doing my best to keep the tires in the tracks created by the landowner hauling his second-cutting.

Finally, we’re sliding the deer on a sled, zigging here and there to avoid the drifts. Our path, as we stop to take a breather and take a look back, looks like we’ve been drinking. The sled is better suited for grade school kids zipping down a hill than hauling a deer. The animal keeps falling partway off, making this more difficult and slower than it should be.

This is the easy part, I tell my son between heavy breaths, because I don’t know how I’m going to turn the pickup around in all this snow.

We finally make it to the fence and can hear the unmistakable rumble of a tractor coming our way. By the time we kick away snow with our boots and negotiate the deer and sled under the bottom strand, the landowner scoops out a place for us to turn the pickup around.

“Put the deer in the bucket and I’ll load it into your pickup,” he yells out of the open door on the tractor’s cab.

I wave him thanks, but I want to hug him, knowing that’s not exactly the gesture Game and Fish officials envisioned when encouraging hunters to do what’s necessary to build better landowner-hunter relations.