Unit Plateau, Boulder (Boulder Elk)
Utah Hunting Guide — Elk
Unit Plateau, Boulder lies in Garfield, Piute, Sevier and Wayne counties and covers about 1,849 square miles. Ground runs from 5,892 to 11,138 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, Boulder
Unit Plateau, Boulder lies in Garfield, Piute, Sevier and Wayne counties and covers about 1,849 square miles. Ground runs from 5,892 to 11,138 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, Boulder
UDWR draws an exact line around unit Plateau, Boulder and says nothing about where the elk stand inside it. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Garfield, Piute, Sevier and Wayne counties. It runs to about 1,849 square miles.
What bounds unit Plateau, Boulder
UDWR has unit Plateau, Boulder Boundary begins at SR-24 and SR-62; south on SR-62 to SR-22; south on SR-22 to the Main Canyon-Sweetwater road; east on Main Canyon-Sweetwater road to SR-12; east on SR-12 to Boulder and the Burr Trail road; east on this road to the Notom road; north on this road to SR-24; west on SR-24 to SR-62. Excludes all CWMUs. It tells you the shape of the unit and nothing about its inhabitants. Those features are what you will check against the map all week, and the divides among them are the ones that matter.
High ground inside the line: Bluebell Knoll, Boulder Mountain and Pinto Knoll
Named high points inside the unit include Bluebell Knoll at 11,324 feet, Boulder Mountain at 11,324 feet, Pinto Knoll at 11,123 feet, Lookout Peak at 11,119 feet and Bowns Point at 10,942 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: West Boulder Draw, Broken Draw and Stink Draw
Below them sit West Boulder Draw at 10,874 feet, Broken Draw at 10,863 feet, Stink Draw at 10,821 feet, Oak Draw at 10,759 feet and Pleasant Creek Meadow at 10,721 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.
Water: Billy Spring, Lost Spring and Parker Springs
The water inside the unit line comes to 577 mapped stream reaches, 54 lakes, 561 stock tanks and 142 springs. Named sources include Billy Spring, Lost Spring, Parker Springs, Cougar Spring, Jackass Spring and Indian 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 5,892 feet to 11,138 feet, averaging 8,426 — 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, Boulder terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
The lay of it
- 5,892–11,138 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 8,426 ft ; peaks can run higher. That spread means you can hunt two seasons in one day — plan clothing for both ends.
- 1,849.2 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
- 561 tanks
- 142 springs
- 577 stream segments
- 54 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: Bluebell Knoll (11,324 ft), Pinto Knoll (11,123 ft), Lookout Peak (11,119 ft), Bowns Point (10,942 ft)
Holding ground: Donkey Meadows (11,224 ft), Riddle Flat (11,125 ft), Beef Meadows (11,074 ft), Billy Spring, Lost 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, Boulder
Elk Success Rates
UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates carry no elk row for unit Plateau, Boulder 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) | 19 | 333 | 5.7% | 16 |
| Archery — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident) | 2 | 353 | 0.6% | 16 |
Data from 2020 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, Boulder, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:
- Rifle, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, nonresident: 688 applicants for 1 licences, 0.1% drawn, 26 bonus points needed
- Archery, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 342 applicants for 24 licences, 7% drawn, 14 bonus points needed
- Archery, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, nonresident: 320 applicants for 3 licences, 0.9% drawn, 14 bonus points needed
- Muzzleloader, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 320 applicants for 15 licences, 4.7% drawn, 12 bonus points 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. There are 1 further season-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. 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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Upgrade to Pro — $49/yrSources & Verification
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