My take on this is that the area is full of whitetails. Those burns were designed for mule deer (and elk), which prefer more open habitat with good sightlines. That's their defense.
The WT tracks you're seeing in the thick is what we expect from them - as a species, they love the thick shit, and rely more on the hide defense than the spot and bolt defense of their cousins.
It's entirely possible that you're not seeing much for tracks in the open because there simply aren't many mule deer there making use of it. You indicate a high pred load, which supports the fact that the WT are supplementing the pred's dinner plate and keeping numbers high.
So, it all ties in with the drivers for mule deer populations.