Vanguard Scope HD

Field Report Part 1: Vanguard Endeavor HD Spotting Scope

Vanguard Scope HDAt the time of this writing, I have just returned from a day spent in the Alaskan outdoors. Just when we thought spring would break, another ten inches of snow fell during the last two days but being an Alaskan means making the best out of bad weather, so I did. 

I traveled to one of my favorite places, Turnagain Arm, which is a scenic byway at the upper end of Cook Inlet in Alaska.  It is one of the most scenic drives in the world on the Seward Highway which links Seward, Alaska to Anchorage.  There is a little bit of everything to look at in the forms of rocky faced cliffs, high mountains, large valleys, tidal marshes, grass prairies and the salt water bay which serves as a highway to countless salmon returning to their local streams. The arm is a great place to look, and there is no better place to try out a new spotting scope.

I have used many other brands of scopes in the past. The good spotters earned a place on some of my hunts, and the bad ones maybe made it to the rifle range to check paper targets out to 300 yards.  It took me two minutes to appreciate the clarity of the 82mm lens on my new Vanguard Endeavor HD angled spotting scope.

Instead of starting small, I aimed it at a hillside two miles away across the bay.  The focus knob quickly dialed in a snowy clearing. After tweaking the fine focus knob, I was looking at a fresh break on the top of a tree that had recently lost its top. Incredible. I was two miles away and if there were an eagle and a raven in the top of that tree, I could easily tell the difference between the two.  The ‘high definition’ part of the scope’s description was proven right away.  Until now, only $3000.00 dollar spotters have been able to perform like this one had, and it cost substantially less.  I still had other tests to put it through though, but so far so good, and I was very impressed.

One other feature of the spotter that I noticed right away was how fog-proof it was both inside and out. I was repeatedly taking it out of my 70+ degree truck and setting it up in the 25 degree outdoors. I experienced no fogging at all.

**The Endeavor HD 82A used for this article provided by Vanguard.