Ranch Reviews!

Wasatch Wapiti
Hunting trophy elk at Utah's Broadmouth Canyon Ranch

American Hunter - March 2003, by Scott Engen

During the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, television viewers were awestruck by the magnificent Utah scenery, especially the snow-capped peaks of the Wasatch range. Just a few miles north of Snow Basin, site of the Olympic downhill races, the small ranching community of Liberty nestles in a pristine mountain valley at the headwaters of the North Fork of the Ogden River. Long renowned for producing top-quality beef and alfalfa honey, more recently it has become known for fine trophy elk hunting.
    The center of this impressively antlered universe is the Broadmouth Canyon Ranch, covering some 12,000 acres of prime elk habitat on land once owned by the John M. Browning family. The ranch ground ranges from open slopes to heavily timbered creek bottoms and narrow draws, at elevations starting around 5,500 feet and going up to nearly twice that altitude. If you were able to iron out all the wrinkles in the landscape, you’d find the place is probably close to twice that size.
    The man who put this impressive plot together is Liberty native Rulon Jones, a former NFL All-Pro defensive end with the Denver Broncos. Jones began assembling the Broadmouth Canyon Ranch in the mid-1980s and now has some 2,000 deeded acres, along with another 10,000 under lease. An avid outdoorsman since childhood, Rulon is the son of Larry Jones, pioneer hunting filmmaker and renowned re-curve bow hunter.
    Broadmouth Canyon Ranch provides one of the nation’s most accessible elk hunts. Regardless of where you live you can have breakfast at home, fly to Salt Lake City, drive about an hour to the ranch, and you might be hunting before sundown the same day. Family owned and operated, the ranch offers a variety of big game, including trophy elk on its 2,000-acre managed area, and free-range hunts for elk, mule deer, and moose on the leased ground. Recent success rates are impressive by any measure, ranging from 75 percent for the free-range elk to virtually 100 percent for the others.
    “Our goal is to provide guests with the highest-quality hunting experience,” said Jones as he relaxed by the crackling fire in the lodge after a long day of guiding this writer over many miles of beautiful scrub hills and forest trails. “We’re meeting some wonderful people and we’re making a living off the land we love, which is hard to do these days.
    “We try to keep our hunting groups small, usually just four to six hunters at a time,” continued Rulon. “Our guests can stay in the lodge, or if they prefer a more rustic setting we have a backwoods spike camp, as well. You can choose to hunt with a rifle, bow, or muzzleloader. The biggest trophy elk we took off the property during 2002 measured 428 on the SCI scale.
    “I’m very proud of our food service,” added Rulon. “Frances Vander Stappen, our lodge manager and cook, has worked for many of the best restaurants in the area and keeps our guests well fed.”
    A comfortable log structure, the lodge was built by Rulon and his father in a grove of huge cottonwoods along the bubbling creek near the mouth of the canyon. An impressive, native-stone fireplace-two stories tall and surrounded with hunting trophies from all over North America-dominates the cozy interior.
    The lodge is an island of splendid isolation in a sea of modern distractions. The entire facility is “off the grid.” Water comes from a spring and power from solar panels, with a generator as backup. There is no TV, no fax, no high-speed Internet access. If you need to make a phone call, a cell phone is available, with good reception as long as you stand in the down-canyon window on the second floor. You can, and should, leave your worldly cares behind when you come- you’re here to hunt.
    I recently had a chance to spend several days with Rulon and his capable staff in pursuit of trophy elk on the managed unit. But before some purist chooses to spark debate on the ethics of managed area hunting, let’s make something perfectly clear. This isn’t the children’s petting zoo.
    Broadmouth Canyon’s managed area is one big piece of ground, measuring several miles on each side, and is some of the toughest, most physically demanding hunting I’ve ever done. The elevation is high, the ground steep, and cover heavy. The shots are challenging, typically 200 to 400 yards, and the animals are very wary. I’ve been on many free-range hunts over the last decade that don’t begin to approach the challenge of Broadmouth Canyon.
    When you choose Broadmouth as your hunt destination, go prepared. Be in good physical shape, saddle-ready, and trail-wise. Hone to a fine edge your game-stalking and marksmanship skills. You’ll need every advantage you can get to put your elk in the freezer and a trophy on the wall.
    My own assessment of the Broadmouth Canyon experience was echoed by several others in our party. One couple, Dr. Terry Fraters and his wife, Charmaine, traveled from Forest Ranch, California, for a trophy hunt. “The facility and hospitality are great,” observed Dr. Fraters, an NRA Life Member. “The potential to get a trophy elk is phenomenal.” That potential soon became reality for Fraters at Broadmouth Canyon, who took a nice trophy bull on his second day.
    “Charmaine a fantastic game cook,” continued Fraters. “She’s a great companion and a very good hunter in her own right. I so enjoy being with her.”
    Charmaine, a non-hunting guest on this trip, was equally enthusiastic. “I’ve so enjoyed this visit, getting away with Terry,” she said. “It’s so beautiful here in the mountains as winter approaches, and it’s a great group of people to be with. What you see in the brochure is what you get. This is a family experience and a good first-hunt experience to help teach positive values on hunting.”
    “I know very few wives who enjoy hunting,” continued Charmaine. “Today public education and the media so often demonize hunting and undermine our sport. Even if people don’t hunt, they shouldn’t be judgmental of those who do.”
    Ed Holzapfel, a civil engineer from Cary, North Carolina, was in full agreement. “This is my seventh elk hunt, and it wasn’t until my third time out I was able to take a bull. This has been an outstanding experience. The guides are accommodating. I’m recovering from knee surgery, and they worked within my physical limitations. I still walked more here on this hunt than on any of my free-range hunts. The trophy bull I took here this week was much better than I thought I was going to get.”
    The guides at Broadmouth are consummate professionals and now include two of Rulon’s sons, Garet, 24, and Chase, 19. “I hear the same thing time and again from many of our clients,” observed Garet. “This is the hunting experience they’ve always dreamed about. This is a place where those dreams come true.”
    Veteran guide Chuck Creamer is a local cowboy with roots going back to the 1800s. He still lives on the original family homestead in Liberty. As we packed an animal off the mountain one frosty morning, Chuck told me his family had hunted there for generations and showed me a gentle bench above the creek where their camp had been for many decades. Traces of the stone fire rings are still visible.
    “Rulon asked me to come work at Broadmouth Canyon Ranch, and I confessed I was a little skeptical of guiding on a managed area,” said Chuck. “After several years here, I now know our hunting is every bit the challenge of any free-range hunt, and the quality of our guiding is as good or better than anywhere else I’ve seen.”
    Chuck shared a personal aside as we neared the end of our ride. Shortly after launching the operation, Rulon invited his family and some close friends to camp on the property and see what he’d done.
    “It was a snowy morning, crisp and clear,” recalled Chuck. “The elk were coming down off one of the high ridges in a long line, bodies and antlers dark against the new snow. My grandfather was in the cab of the pickup and asked me to join him. As I slid in beside him, he turned to me and his glasses were misted over, big tears streaming down his cheeks. 'I never thought these old eyes would see something like that ever again,' ‘he whispered. That was his last time up here, and he passed away not long after that. It was Rulon who conducted his funeral service, and there were tears in his eyes, too.”
    “Some of my very best memories are of hunting with my family,” concluded Rulon, gazing into the flames as the fire began to wane. “Being together in the outdoors provides the experiences that make lasting memories. We want to do what we can to help provide families with those experiences.”
    If you’ve always dreamed of taking a trophy bull and have yet to fill that spot on the wall, start making plans for a visit to Broadmouth Canyon.
    And of this writer? He took a nice 6x6 with a single neck shot at a little more than 100 yards. The rack is at the local taxidermist for a classic European mount, and the freezer is full of meat for the long winter ahead. Life is good.

On The Line With Rulon Jones

    Having interviewed a number of prominent sports figures over the years, I steeled myself for yet another major ego upon meeting former NFL star Rulon Jones. I am please to report I was dead wrong.
    Instead I was greeted by a tall, lanky man who sat down to share a steaming bowl of homemade moose chili, then led the way as we gathered our hunting gear and headed up the canyon on two surefooted steeds. The mid-November sun was already beginning to dim, and low clouds pelted us with occasional snow.
    As I launched into questions prepared for this article, Rulon would pause, then answer thoughtfully, without any of the spin and splash of many ex-jocks. The longer we rode the more we talked. It was soon no longer an interview between a working journalist and his subject. We were just a couple of 40-something guys who loved to be out in the woods.
    Rulon talked about growing up in the area, and we found our backgrounds were similar. We talked politics, economics, philosophy, and the spirit of hunting. We discussed the relationship of man to nature and wildlife, and our stewardship over the land and living resources. Pretty deep stuff coming from someone I’d just met hours earlier.

Hunt with former Denver Broncos All-Pro RULON JONES
Request a free DVD: Send your name and mailing address to: rulon@utahelkhunt.com