Unit Wasatch Mtns
Utah Hunting Guide — Elk
Unit Wasatch Mtns lies in Carbon, Duchesne, Summit, Utah and Wasatch counties and covers about 2,567 square miles. Ground runs from 5,652 to 9,841 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 Wasatch Mtns
Unit Wasatch Mtns lies in Carbon, Duchesne, Summit, Utah and Wasatch counties and covers about 2,567 square miles. Ground runs from 5,652 to 9,841 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 Wasatch Mtns
UDWR draws an exact line around unit Wasatch Mtns and says nothing about where the elk stand inside it. Every place named below sits inside the unit line. Which of them holds animals in your season is for you to find out. The unit lies in Carbon, Duchesne, Summit, Utah and Wasatch counties. It runs to about 2,567 square miles.
The lines of the unit: Salt Lake and Upper Corner Canyon
UDWR draws unit Wasatch Mtns in Carbon, Duchesne, Summit, Utah and Wasatch counties with a boundary that runs on I-15, and on Salt Lake and Upper Corner Canyon, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions. It tells you the shape of the unit and nothing about its inhabitants. 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: Mount Timpanogos, Lone Peak and Box Elder Peak
Named high points inside the unit include Mount Timpanogos at 11,728 feet, Lone Peak at 11,192 feet, Box Elder Peak at 11,062 feet, Sugarloaf Mountain at 11,037 feet and Roberts Horn at 10,968 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: Coleman Basin, Guardsman Pass and Cascade Cirque
Below them sit Coleman Basin at 9,807 feet, Guardsman Pass at 9,692 feet, Cascade Cirque at 9,584 feet, Big Provo Cirque at 9,526 feet and Smith Basin at 9,482 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.
Water: Castilla Springs, Clyde Spring and Boardman Spring
The water inside the unit line comes to 3,589 mapped stream reaches, 70 lakes, 635 stock tanks and 310 springs. Named sources include Castilla Springs, Clyde Spring, Boardman Spring, Mill Canyon Spring, Split Spring and Red Cedar 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 32% 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 5,652 feet to 9,841 feet, averaging 7,656 — that is a lot of vertical to cover, and it means the season you draw decides which half of the unit you hunt.
Unit Wasatch Mtns terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
The lay of it
- 5,652–9,841 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 7,656 ft ; peaks can run higher. That spread means you can hunt two seasons in one day — plan clothing for both ends.
- 2,566.8 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.
Who owns the ground
- National Forest — 60%
- State Trust — 8%
- Private / Other — 32%
Roughly 68% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.
Water on the ground
- 635 tanks
- 310 springs
- 3,589 stream segments
- 70 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: Mount Timpanogos (11,728 ft), Lone Peak (11,192 ft), Box Elder Peak (11,062 ft), Sugarloaf Mountain (11,037 ft)
Holding ground: Timpanogos Basin (10,211 ft), Mineral Flat (10,174 ft), Roundy Basin (9,817 ft), Castilla Springs, Clyde 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 Wasatch Mtns
Elk Success Rates
UDWR's 2023 harvest estimates carry no elk row for unit Wasatch Mtns 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rifle — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident) | 0 | 0 | 0.0% | 16 |
| Rifle — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident) | 24 | 257 | 9.3% | 16 |
| Muzzleloader — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident) | 96 | 605 | 15.9% | 17 |
| Muzzleloader — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident) | 9 | 169 | 5.3% | 17 |
| Archery — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident) | 8 | 27 | 29.6% | 6 |
| Archery — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident) | 1 | 9 | 11.1% | 6 |
| Archery — Antlerless antlerless (resident) | 465 | 465 | 100.0% | — |
| Archery — Antlerless antlerless (nonresident) | 24 | 24 | 100.0% | — |
| Any Legal Weapon — Limited Entry bull/buck only (resident) | 190 | 1,560 | 12.2% | 21 |
| Any Legal Weapon — Limited Entry bull/buck only (nonresident) | 21 | 301 | 7.0% | 21 |
| Any Legal Weapon — Multi-season bull/buck only (resident) | 19 | 586 | 3.2% | 25 |
| Any Legal Weapon — Multi-season bull/buck only (nonresident) | 2 | 80 | 2.5% | 25 |
Data from 2024 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.
Open in Draw Odds EngineUDWR's 2025 draw recap for elk in unit Wasatch Mtns, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:
- Any Legal Weapon, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 2,573 applicants for 65 licences, 2.5% drawn, 24 bonus points needed
- Archery, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 1,018 applicants for 160 licences, 15.7% drawn, 16 bonus points needed
- Muzzleloader, Limited Entry, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 605 applicants for 96 licences, 15.9% drawn, 17 bonus points needed
- Any Legal Weapon, Multi-season, Bull/Buck Only, resident: 586 applicants for 19 licences, 3.2% drawn, 25 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 6 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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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