As we flew directly towards the ridgeline that marked the end of our 20th transect, the pilot asked, "I assume you guys are through for the day?"

It was actually early afternoon, but we'd been at this for over seven hours already.

"I am!" spoke the voice from the rear seat.

Me, too.

"Good, 'cause I've had all the fun I want for today," answered the pilot.

I hit the button to record GPS coordinates for the end of our last transect and he banked left for a hard turn, and the forty-five mile flight back to the airport.

It'd been a frustrating day. The weather and air were actually quite good, but there'd been many, many minutes spent cursing the PDA and laser altimeter, which had on several occasions decided they wouldn't bluetooth together.

One of those miscommunications aborted a flight an hour early, and necessitated me re-introducing the two pieces of equipment to each other back on the ground.

The suggestion from the back seat was that we introduce the laser altimeter to the bottom of the reservoir.

The pilot's query was whether or not the warden in back could shoot the laser off the wing from the back seat.

Without hitting the wing...

But we got it done. One pronghorn herd down,

One to go.

Oh six hundred tomorrow.