Although the snow was slow to recede during the cool, damp first half of May, the warmer weather that has predominated since has pushed the snow line pretty far up the Elkhorn and Wallowa mountains.

A mule deer buck like this would get almost any hunter’s heart racing. The buck hunting season starts Saturday. (Baker City Herald file photo/S. John Collins)

The season’s first significant storm is scheduled to arrive late Friday, less than a dozen hours before thousands of buck hunters awaken from dreams of four-points.

This cold front should create nearly ideal hunting conditions for Saturday’s opening morning of the season, which continues through Oct. 15 in Eastern Oregon.

“It’s looking good,” said Nick Myatt, district wildlife biologist at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Baker City office.

“If the weather continued like it was yesterday (Wednesday), hot and dry, it wouldn’t be a very fun deer season.”

Forest started a year-long survey of recreational visitors on Wednesday

A twelve-month survey of visitors to the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest began Wednesday with workers gathering information about what forest users enjoy doing, where they like to go, and how satisfied they were while recreating on the forest.

During hunting seasons this fall, survey takers will set up orange cones along roads to encourage hunters to pull over and spend a few minutes answering questions, said Dan Ermovick, the Wallowa-Whitman’s recreation manager.

“The survey is voluntary and confidential,” Ermovick said.

He said the survey covers four types of recreational uses, including day use sites (picnicking and sightseeing), overnight sites, general forest sites (including hunting and fishing) and wilderness trail exit points.

With deer hunting season opening Saturday, Ermovick said survey takers hired by the University of West Virginia will be conducting survey interviews at popular hunting areas.

With the cougar population increasing in Northeastern Oregon, reports of cougars stalking people are raising concerns that the big cats might be losing their fear of humans.

A ranch hand from the Haines area reported being stalked by a cougar along the North Powder River, and two days later a bow hunter with ties to Baker County reported killing a cougar near Ukiah after it stalked him on Aug. 30, the first day of the hunting season.

Those are just two of a growing list of cougar sightings and encounters reported recently in Northeastern Oregon.

In the Haines cougar stalking incident, Sebastian Combs, 28, was sitting in a tree stand scouting for deer and elk when he saw a pair of eyes staring at him from a patch of brush.