Unit S1 (Clark's Fork)

The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission names bighorn sheep hunt area 1 "Clark's Fork". It runs to about 694 square miles, entirely in Park County. WGFD reports these bighorn sheep as the Absaroka herd unit, which also takes in bighorn sheep hunt areas 2, 3, 4, 5 and 22. The boundary and the harvest figures are WGFD's. The read of the country inside them is ours, and it says so where it starts.

The line: Clark's Fork River, Sunlight Creek and Soda Butte Creek

WGFD's 2026 Chapter 9 defines bighorn sheep hunt area 1 as all of the drainage of the Clark's Fork River north of Sunlight Creek and north of the Clark's Fork River below its confluence with Sunlight Creek; and the drainage of Soda Butte Creek outside of Yellowstone National Park. It is the description your license is good inside, so it is worth reading once in full before you go. The full text is in Section 6 of that chapter, with this year's season dates and license limitations in Section 3.

Not the same ground as the other hunt area 1s

WGFD numbers each species' hunt areas on its own grid, so the number 1 also belongs to its elk, deer, antelope, moose and mountain goat hunt areas 1. Only the mountain goat area shares a county with this one. A license is good only in the hunt area of its own species, so this page is about the bighorn sheep area, and the cards at the foot of the page link the others.

Ground WGFD opens: Sunlight Basin

WGFD administers the Sunlight Basin Wildlife Habitat Management Area (1,410 acres) inside or across the line. Public Access Areas such as Clarks Fork River-Hatchery (281 acres) and Clarks Fork River-Beartooth Ranch (3 acres) are public ways onto water and land; check what each allows before you count on it for hunting.

Wilderness inside the line: North Absaroka Wilderness and Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness

About 30% of bighorn sheep hunt area 1 lies in the North Absaroka Wilderness and 5% of bighorn sheep hunt area 1 lies in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. WGFD's 2026 regulations print the rule that matters there: no nonresident may hunt big game in a designated wilderness area unless accompanied by a licensed professional guide or a resident guide, with at least one guide for every two nonresident hunters. Inside the wilderness there are no roads, so every animal there comes out on your back or on a horse.

High ground inside the line: Pilot Peak, Black Mountain and Index Peak

Named high points inside bighorn sheep hunt area 1 include Pilot Peak at 11,605 feet, Black Mountain at 11,556 feet, Index Peak at 11,245 feet, Geers Point at 11,198 feet and Hurricane Mesa at 11,029 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Sheep need rock to escape into and will not stand far from it.

Holding ground: Strawberry Gulch, Willow Park and Burnt Gulch

Below them sit Strawberry Gulch at 7,034 feet, Willow Park at 6,983 feet, Burnt Gulch at 6,970 feet, East Fork Painter Gulch at 6,940 feet and Painter Gulch at 6,797 feet. That is the low ground — where animals drop when they are pushed or when the weather turns.