Unit North Slope/south Slope, High Uintas Central (High Uintas Central)

UDWR's own harvest estimates put mountain goat success in unit North Slope/south Slope, High Uintas Central at rifle 65% and archery 45%. A number like that comes from few tags and a short season, not from easy hunting. The plan: glass from across the basin, judge the climb honestly, and decide whether a hit animal could be recovered.

Glassing from Lake Fork Mountain, Flat Top Mountain and Red Mountain

Take a position on one of Lake Fork Mountain (10,892 ft), Flat Top Mountain (10,488 ft), Red Mountain (9,518 ft) and Yellow Ledges (8,238 ft) and be on it before light. In the dark the air runs downhill. Pick an approach that doesn't send it into the country you want to see, and plan to move once the slope warms. Work the glass in strips and go back over ground you already covered — animals appear in country you looked at ten minutes ago. On the rut hunts, early hunts find goats higher and later hunts find them pushed down by snow.

Water against feed

There are 124 mapped stream reaches and 340 tanks inside the unit, so water is rarely the limiting factor. Where water is everywhere, feed is what concentrates animals, so hunt the feed and treat water as a convenience. Check the ground around it before you commit an evening to it.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Season normals here run Sep 72/41°F, Oct 58/31°F and Nov 43/19°F. By Nov the lows are around 19°F, and the first hard storm after that moves animals off the high ground — a late tag is a bet on that storm arriving. Precipitation runs about 1.3 in. in Sep, 1 in. in Oct and 0.6 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

Getting past the roads: NF 80072 and NF 80017

There is little true four-wheel-drive road here, so distance from the gravel is the only thing separating you from the next hunter.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks South Kings Peak, Mount Emmons, Mount Powell and Wilson Peak as places to see from, and Anderson Pass, Porcupine Pass, Trail Rider Pass and Limekiln Spring as ground to watch. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the unit line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Join two of them into a morning: be on the first before light, move to the second once the thermals turn.

What a day here costs you

465 square miles is more country than a week will cover, so pick one drainage and learn it rather than driving the unit. The nearest services are at Altamont, about 27 miles out, which is an hour of your morning each way if you sleep there. With 3,527 feet between the lowest and highest ground, the walk back up out of a kill site is the part to plan first. Decide the night before where you will be at first light, and go there in the dark.

What we can't tell you

A UDWR permit does not authorise hunting on Native American trust lands, on a CWMU without that CWMU's own permit, or on National Park land, and written permission is required to hunt private land. Settle access before the season rather than during it.