Cukars are a favorite among Western upland bird hunters at least partly because the rugged terrain they call home is often publicly held.

The fog was so dense, I could barely see 100 feet ahead, but I knew that just beyond my limited vision, the ground tilted abruptly upward, terminating in the towering red cliffs where the chukars lived. Frowning, I set a waypoint on my GPS and slipped it into my vest. Then Powder--the dog I thought least likely to run off and disappear in the white, milky, nothingness--and I set off blindly through the frosted cheat grass for the ridgeline I knew was out there someplace.

We were utterly lost within minutes. There's precious little comfort in knowing that your lifeline home depends on a battery-operated GPS that has a checkered history of burning through batteries just when you need them most. Half an hour later, we'd made it to the cliffs as much by feel as by sight, but the temperature was plummeting and the wind was picking up. I scraped at the ice coating my pants.

The hell, I thought. I've already been here a week. Why am I doing this to myself?

Then I got an answer. From somewhere ahead I heard the faint beep of my Brittany's locator collar. I got there just in time to catch a glimpse of the covey skittering away into the fog. Powder slowly turned her head to look at me. I sent her on, and a few moments later, I heard her beeper again.

I'd hunted this same ridgeline earlier on a calm, 40 degree day under cloudless skies. Chukars had been thick as thieves, which was why I'd chosen the spot for the last day of my trip. Now, feeling my way toward the sound, I was questioning my sanity. This time however, the birds held and when they got up, I scratched one down just before the entire covey blinked out in the fog.

That was enough for me. In the previous seven days, two of my three dogs' pads had been scraped raw, my surgically jury-rigged knee was throbbing, and after a week of nonstop climbing on rock, snow and ice, my feet were killing me. I'd never had so much fun in my life. Chukars are a great gamebird for a whole bunch of good reasons, not least because chukar country is typically warm. Not warm warm--nothing like Arizona in January, if you want a comparison--but even in mid-winter it's often in the 30s and sometimes the 40s--ideal weather for a companionable stroll through the high desert. Chukars aren't a popular Western gamebird for nothing, and the typically mild, early-season weather has a lot to do with that. But mild weather, and the bird's habit of congregating around water, attracts bird hunters in droves. You wouldn't think a bird that can waltz straight up a sheer cliff would be anyone's favorite, but that, as some sage once said, is what you get for thinking.

The lack of competition is why I hunt late in the season. There are still plenty of birds, but the covies head for the hills when fall rains green up the cheat grass they feed on. There are still hunters, too--hardly a day goes by that I don't hear the echo of their shots--but on most days I can hunt just about any ridgeline and have it to myself.

Chukars are marquee birds in California, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Colorado and Idaho, but the tri-state region where the borders of southwestern Idaho, southeastern Oregon and northern Nevada touch may well have more chukars per square mile than any other chunk of real estate in the country. Call it the "chukar triangle."