On October 5th, 2013 I was introduced to elk hunting the south slope of the High Uintas. I'd spent months planning, mapping, and preparing for this trip. I had, not surprisingly, failed to gather very much information on the specifics of this unit. No one I know had ever hunted the south, or north slopes. The people on numerous web forums who said they had hunted them omitted any specifics about locations or expectations. Their sole purpose, it seemed, was to tell the reader how difficult the elk were to find, while simultaneously alluding to the suggestion that the elk were everywhere. I found this oxymoronical approach to be perplexing. To compound my confusion even more, a statement in a Utah Department of Wildlife Resources news item published on 28 September, 2012, DWR biologist Anis Aoude made the claim that, "...some of the largest elk herds are found on...the South Slope/Yellowstone unit." (1) If this unit was so laden with elk, then why was there so little information on it? Why couldn't I find a single person who had hunted it? Did this mean it was the best kept secret in Utah, or potentially the biggest bust?
My intent is to explore these questions, and provide additional insight on the entire High Uintas Wilderness area on this Blog. Some of what I will present will be based off of personal experiences, and some of it will be based off of documented and cited research. In addition to helping readers understand the area itself, I will also document reviews on certain types of equipment, strategies, and other opinionated ideas related to chasing game in the High Uintas.
(1) http://wildlife.utah.gov/wildlife-news/42-utah-wildlife-news/926-plenty-of-bull-elk-in-utah.html
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