Unit Plateau, Barney Top/kaiparowits (Barney Top/Kaiparowits)
Utah Hunting Guide — Elk
Unit Plateau, Barney Top/kaiparowits lies in Garfield and Kane counties and covers about 3,391 square miles. Ground runs from 3,703 to 9,426 feet. UDWR's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 28%. Most of the unit is private, so access comes before tactics. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
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Elk Hunting in Unit Plateau, Barney Top/kaiparowits
Unit Plateau, Barney Top/kaiparowits lies in Garfield and Kane counties and covers about 3,391 square miles. Ground runs from 3,703 to 9,426 feet. UDWR's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 28%. Most of the unit is private, so access comes before tactics. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Where to Find Elk in Unit Plateau, Barney Top/kaiparowits
UDWR's material on unit Plateau, Barney Top/kaiparowits stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its elk live. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Garfield and Kane counties. It runs to about 3,391 square miles.
The lines of the unit: Paria River and Main Canyon
UDWR draws unit Plateau, Barney Top/kaiparowits in Garfield and Kane counties with a boundary that runs on Paria River and Main Canyon, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions. That is a legal description, not a habitat map. What it does give you is the way in: the rivers and highways you cross, and the divides that decide which drainage you end up in.
High ground inside the line: Barney Top, Powell Point and Table Cliff
Named high points inside the unit include Barney Top at 10,621 feet, Powell Point at 10,200 feet, Table Cliff at 9,337 feet, Canaan Peak at 9,302 feet and Henderson Point at 8,241 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Elk want timber to bed in and open ground to feed on, within a short walk of each other.
Holding ground: Canaan Bottom, Barker Hollow and Bull Flat
Below them sit Canaan Bottom at 7,861 feet, Barker Hollow at 7,693 feet, Bull Flat at 7,667 feet, Mud Spring Draw at 7,559 feet and Lonesome Pine Flat at 7,551 feet. Those are the basins, parks and bottoms this unit has, and they are what you glass into from above. Pick the one with the least road on its upwind side.
Water: Dipping Vat Spring, Cave Spring and Soda Spring
The water inside the unit line comes to 3,792 mapped stream reaches, 9 lakes, 139 stock tanks and 123 springs. Named sources include Dipping Vat Spring, Cave Spring, Soda Spring, Mossy Dell Spring, Relishen Seep and Cottonwood Spring. On ground with that many tanks, knowing which two or three hold water in your season is the most useful thing a scouting trip can tell you.
Before you apply: who owns this unit
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. Our ownership read for this unit is approximate — it comes out as National Forest 60%, Private / Other 17%, BLM 15% and State Trust 8%, so treat it as a starting point and check a current land-status layer before you plan a route. The unit runs from 3,703 feet to 9,426 feet, averaging 5,654 — that is a lot of vertical to cover, and it means the season you draw decides which half of the unit you hunt.
Unit Plateau, Barney Top/kaiparowits terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
The lay of it
- 3,703–9,426 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 5,654 ft ; peaks can run higher. That spread means you can hunt two seasons in one day — plan clothing for both ends.
- 3,390.8 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.
Who owns the ground
- National Forest — 60%
- BLM — 15%
- State Trust — 8%
- Private / Other — 17%
Roughly 83% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.
Water on the ground
- 139 tanks
- 123 springs
- 3,792 stream segments
- 9 lakes
Counts from mapping data, so this is how many exist, not how many hold water in a dry year. Sitting water only pays where you find fresh tracks.
Named features inside the unit
Glass from: Barney Top (10,621 ft), Powell Point (10,200 ft), Canaan Peak (9,302 ft), Henderson Point (8,241 ft)
Holding ground: Table Cliff Plateau (10,282 ft), Yankee Meadow (8,602 ft), Pine Canyon (8,242 ft), Dipping Vat Spring, Cave Spring
Every one of these was tested against the unit polygon before it went on the map. They are starting points, not agency recommendations.
How to Hunt Elk in Unit Plateau, Barney Top/kaiparowits
Elk Success Rates
UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates carry no elk row for unit Plateau, Barney Top/kaiparowits that we can read back to this unit on its own. Where the agency reports a unit inside a grouping, or prints a table our parser cannot resolve to a single column, we leave the number out rather than publish a statewide average as though it had been measured here. UDWR's current harvest estimates are the place to check before you apply.
Elk Draw Odds
| Season | Tags | Applicants | Draw % | Pts Req |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archery — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident) | 9 | 44 | 20.5% | 23 |
| Archery — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident) | 1 | 86 | 1.2% | 23 |
| Rifle — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident) | 9 | 42 | 21.4% | 1 |
| Rifle — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident) | 1 | 18 | 5.6% | 1 |
Data from 2023 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.
Open in Draw Odds EngineUDWR's 2023 draw recap for elk in unit Plateau, Barney Top/kaiparowits, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:
- Archery, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, nonresident: 86 applicants for 1 licences, 1.2% drawn, 23 bonus points needed
- Archery, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 44 applicants for 9 licences, 20.5% drawn, 23 bonus points needed
- Rifle, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 42 applicants for 9 licences, 21.4% drawn, 1 bonus point needed
- Rifle, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, nonresident: 18 applicants for 1 licences, 5.6% drawn, 1 bonus point needed
Utah draws on bonus points in a weighted random draw, not in point order, so the figure above is what it happened to take that year rather than a threshold you can plan to reach. More points buy more chances, never a turn. These are the figures as published in UDWR's own draw recap; we have not yet checked them back against the agency row by row, so confirm the hunt you mean to apply for before you count on a number.
Unit Logistics & Expectations
Frequently Asked Questions
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Every fact on this page is tied to a primary source below. Last fact-checked 2026-10-24.
- UDWR Hunt Boundaries — boundary descriptions from the Hunt Planner boundary layer — Utah Division of Wildlife Resources · supports: GMU boundary description, Counties the unit lies in, UDWR's private-land note for the unit · accessed 2026-10-24
- UDWR DWR_Hunt_Boundaries_combined feature service — all 687 published hunt boundaries, including the CWMUs — Utah Division of Wildlife Resources · supports: Mapped extent of the unit, Which named ground falls inside the unit line · accessed 2026-10-24