Photographers! How do you handle dramatic light differences?

I shoot a lot of nature / landscape scenes where you have a bright sky, even on cloudy days, compared to a relatively dark target and often one gets blown out
i sometimes use in camera hdr but Nikon, for whatever reason, makes you revert to jpg to do so which can be a hassle, well not a hassle (I'm showing my lazy side lol )
any tips on how to get both light and dark targets without one getting blown out?
for exmaple: the attached pic, i handled as well as i could, but i would have liked the trees on the far right to be a bit brighter. Outside of using software or hdr, any tips?

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