HD 406 covers the Powder River corridor around Broadus and the surrounding sage-and-pine breaks country—Powder River County is the literal middle of nowhere by Montana standards, and the unit reflects that. Elevations run from about 3,000 feet on the Powder River bottom up to 4,000 feet on the higher prairie ridges. The Powder River is a slow, sandy, cottonwood-lined waterway "a mile wide and an inch deep" that holds excellent whitetail in its bottom corridor. Above the river, the country is rolling sage prairie, dryland wheat where it can be plowed, with scattered ponderosa-pine and juniper breaks in the deeper coulees. Sandstone outcrops poke through the timber. Mule deer use the timbered breaks and rocky benches; whitetail are dense in the Powder River bottoms (this is one of the better whitetail corridors in eastern MT); pronghorn work the open prairie; some elk move through the breaks. BLM tracts scatter through the country, with DNRC state sections and significant private ranchland—old SE MT cattle and dryland-wheat outfits. Block Management is essential. US-212 is the only paved road through; county and BLM dirt routes handle the rest, gumbo when wet. Broadus has gas, the Powder River Manor motel, a grocery, a hardware store, the courthouse—a real Montana ranch town that hasn't been Bozemanized. Miles City is north 80 miles. Cell service holds in Broadus and gets thin on the back roads. The whitetail rut along the Powder in mid-November is one of the better-kept secrets in eastern MT—a hunter with permission or a BMA stamp on the right ranch can have a great hunt.