Just keep in your mind... is there a REASON they'd be in there? Would going into a certain area do nothing other than burn calories and get them farther away from food and water? If so, they ain't gonna do it. With no observable reward for their efforts? Sometimes the reward might be a safe place to sleep. But yeah, it can't be like reDONKulously strenuous to get in there with no perceivable reward.
And also sometimes you'll find these little pathways they make following along longstanding drain lines / washes that gradually meander along... but... this little wash it makes... which is usually dotted with trees... passes thru some places where it's crazy thick and ain't no way anything with antlers is gonna mess around with trying to bust thru there. So even though perhaps other times of the year it might be possible they do go thru there to try to find acorns that have fallen and are easy pickin's, they certainly aren't going to be able to do it once antlers have come in.
Also in terms of water... you gotta remember that they are gonna be willing and needing to get it from ANYWHERE!! The safer the better! I say this because in a place I frequent a lot... I go past this seep. The trail line is along this very steep hillside... and at a certain point... this seep crosses the trail. Where it crosses the trail here... it creates a bunch of reed grasses and some standing muddy water that you could imagine them mushing their faces into those grasses to try to suck up water in that muddiness that does have a lil bit of standing water on top of it. (Not to mention eating those reed grasses would also xfer water into them) It also continues on down the scary steep hillside and way down there... meets up with the main creek line that escorts the water back on down outta there. So in that instance... you can see a reason they'd bother with coming by occasionally. And the sign bears this out. And that steepness provides them with an escape route that other critters ain't gonna be able to pull off with their kinda speed and agility.
Another type of thing I've seen is the occasional weird depressions or holes that form cups found on large stones... and what happens is condensation that collects on the stones surface over-night drips on down into these holes/divets and makes a nice little cup of water they can walk right up and drink out of, if they are lucky and know where it's at. Which, ya know, they can smell it, so there ya go. That one was at the top of a mountain so I'm sure it had a high probability of often having condensation on it in the PM. Also because of the large stones getting the condensation... it slides off them and dribbles into the ground nearby them, and you'll see there are more nice flowering plants in this area than most others. So I'm sure they know to hit it up sometimes. Nibbling on flower petals has got to be a nice treat for them in terms of getting water out of their food. Also places like that, with good flowering, you'll often hear the bees farting around in such places before you actually can see and realize there are good flowers there.