Colorado Elk Pronghorn

Unit 13 (Jackson)

Colorado Hunting Guide — Elk, Pronghorn

Unit 13 lies in Moffat and Routt counties. CPW bounds it by U.S. 40 and Routt CR 179 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 50%. Federal land covers about 6% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Colorado Hunting Guide

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Public Land

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Elk Hunting in Unit 13

Where to Find Elk in Unit 13

What CPW publishes for unit 13 is a boundary, not a elk map. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Moffat and Routt counties.

The lines of the unit: U.S. 40, Routt CR 179 and Trout Creek

CPW has unit 13 bounded on the north by U.S. 40; on the east by Routt CR 179, Trout Creek, Fish Creek; on the south by Routt CR 29 and Colo. 317; on the west by Colo. 13. It tells you the shape of the unit and nothing about its inhabitants. Its value is practical — those are the features you will navigate by, and the ridges that separate one day's country from another's.

High ground inside the line: Williams Fork Mountains, Daton Peak and Hillberry Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include Williams Fork Mountains at 8,456 feet, Daton Peak at 8,206 feet, Hillberry Mountain at 7,736 feet, Buck Peak at 7,732 feet and Gnat Hill at 7,135 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Elk on low, open country live on distance and visibility, so they see you first.

Holding ground: Hayden Gulch, Holderness Gulch and Watering Trough Gulch

Below them sit Hayden Gulch at 7,000 feet, Holderness Gulch at 6,855 feet, Watering Trough Gulch at 6,791 feet, Hubberson Gulch at 6,783 feet and Twentymile Park at 6,721 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.

Public ground to start from: Grassy Creek STL, Jeffway Gulch STL and Sage Creek STL

CPW lists Grassy Creek STL, Jeffway Gulch STL, Sage Creek STL, Stokes Gulch STL and Yampa River STL inside this unit as ground open to public hunting. Each property sets its own restrictions, and the agency's page for it is where they are written down. Federal land covers about 6% of the unit on top of those.

The herd this unit belongs to: E-6

CPW does not manage elk unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit E-6, and unit 13 is one piece of it. The rest of E-6 is unit 11, unit 12, unit 23, unit 24, unit 25, unit 26, unit 33 and unit 34 and 3 more. So the objective behind your tag was written for that whole area, and a neighbouring unit in the same herd is a fairer comparison than the statewide figure.

Unit 13 terrain and land status

Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Daton Peak (8,206 ft), Breeze Mountain (7,007 ft)

Holding ground: Grassy Gap (7,054 ft), Twentymile Park (6,721 ft), Grassy Creek STL, Jeffway Gulch STL, Sage Creek STL, Stokes Gulch STL

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 13

CPW's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit 13 at archery 25%, muzzleloader 50% and rifle 27%. A number like that comes from few tags and a short season, not from easy hunting. The plan: find the feed, find the timber it backs onto, then watch the seam between them at the edges of the day.

Glassing from Williams Fork Mountains, Daton Peak and Hillberry Mountain

Take a position on one of Williams Fork Mountains (8,456 ft), Daton Peak (8,206 ft), Hillberry Mountain (7,736 ft) and Buck Peak (7,732 ft) and be on it before light. Cold air slides downhill in the dark, so keep your scent out of the bowl you mean to watch; expect the thermals to turn uphill an hour after the sun reaches the slope. Give a basin forty minutes before you decide it is empty. On the rut hunts, September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

Getting past the roads

There is little true four-wheel-drive road here, so distance from the gravel is the only thing separating you from the next hunter. 2 mapped public entry points fall inside the unit, so decide which one you take before the morning you take it.

Where unit 13 sits inside E-6

Across E-6, CPW's 2023 elk success runs 27% in unit 13, 22% in unit 12, 19% in unit 131, 18% in unit 23 and 17% in unit 211. Unit 13 is the best of them on that measure, which usually means fewer tags rather than more animals. Success inside one herd moves with tag numbers and season length as much as with animals, so read the licence count alongside it.

The way in: U.S. 40, Routt CR 179 and Routt CR 29

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones CPW draws the boundary with: U.S. 40, Routt CR 179, Routt CR 29, Colo. 317 and Colo. 13. Those are its edges, not its interior — useful because they are where you leave the pavement, and useless for telling you what the inside is like. Check each of them on a current motor-vehicle-use map before you count on it, because a line on a boundary description is not a promise of public access.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Daton Peak and Breeze Mountain as places to see from, and Grassy Gap, Twentymile Park, Grassy Creek STL and Jeffway Gulch STL as ground to watch. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the unit line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Join two of them into a morning: be on the first before light, move to the second once the thermals turn.

What a day here costs you

362 square miles is more country than a week will cover, so pick one drainage and learn it rather than driving the unit. The ground is gentle enough that the pack-out is a distance problem rather than a climbing one. One good position held through the whole of first light beats three visited in a hurry.

What we can't tell you

Some of the ground named above carries no land-status flag we trust, so check ownership on a current layer before you hunt it.

Colorado rules that decide your day

Summarised from CPW regulations. They change — read the current regulations and your permit-tag before you hunt.

Legal shooting hours

Big game may be taken from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.

Motorized retrieval

Colorado has no general off-road retrieval allowance. Travel stays on designated routes, so plan to pack every animal out on your back or with stock. Check the forest or BLM travel map for the roads that are actually open in hunting season.

Tagging

Validate and attach your carcass tag before the animal is moved, and keep evidence of sex attached until the carcass reaches your home or a processor.

Leaving meat

Abandoning edible meat is illegal. CPW counts the four quarters and the loins.

Where you may not shoot

Occupied structures — No discharging a firearm within 50 yards of a developed campsite, and never toward an occupied building.
Roads — No shooting from or across a public road, and no shooting from a motor vehicle.

Elk: where to put the shot

Broadside or quartering away, on the back edge of the front leg about a third of the way up the body. That is lungs, and on a quartering-away angle it picks up the far shoulder.

Shots to refuse

No straight-on and no straight-away shots. An elk's chest is deep and the margin is small.
Nothing standing behind or overlapping the animal you picked. A pass-through kills the elk behind it too.
Your maximum range is the farthest you have put three shots in a paper plate off the sticks you are actually carrying. Not the farthest you have ever hit anything.
Scope on 3–4x. A herd fills a 12x field of view and you lose the animal you picked.

Identification:On an antlerless tag, legal means no antler of any kind through the skin. A spike looks exactly like a cow until it turns its head. If you can't see the head, don't shoot.

Plan the carry: roughly 150– 220 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — two to four large coolers, plus bagged ice from town. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

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Elk Success Rates

All manners of take27%

Archery25%

Muzzleloader50%

Rifle27%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 13 at 27% — 340 animals taken by 1,262 hunters. That is a lot of hunters in one unit, and the percentage is what it looks like after all of them have been through it.

Archery — 25% success, 57 taken by 228 hunters
Muzzleloader — 50% success, 11 taken by 22 hunters
Rifle — 27% success, 273 taken by 1,012 hunters

These are the agency's own printed figures for this unit, not a modelled estimate and not a state average. They describe one season, so check CPW's current harvest estimates before you read a trend into them.

Elk Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (resident)	54	133	40.6%	—
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	15	54	27.8%	1

Data from 2026 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.

Open in Draw Odds Engine

CPW's 2026 draw recap for elk in unit 13, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

EF013L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Cow Only, resident: 133 applicants for 54 licences, 40.6% drawn, no preference points needed
EF013L1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Cow Only, nonresident: 54 applicants for 15 licences, 27.8% drawn, 1 preference point needed

Colorado runs a pure preference-point draw, so the point figure above is the requirement the agency published for that code in that year, not a forecast for the next one. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Pronghorn Hunting in Unit 13

Unit 13 lies in Moffat and Routt counties. CPW bounds it by U.S. 40 and Routt CR 179 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put pronghorn success here as high as 18%. Federal land covers about 6% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Pronghorn in Unit 13

CPW's material on unit 13 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its pronghorn live. So the ground below is the unit's own and the read on where to start is ours, labelled as such. The unit lies in Moffat and Routt counties.

The lines of the unit: U.S. 40, Routt CR 179 and Trout Creek

CPW has unit 13 bounded on the north by U.S. 40; on the east by Routt CR 179, Trout Creek, Fish Creek; on the south by Routt CR 29 and Colo. 317; on the west by Colo. 13. That is a legal description, not a habitat map. 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: Breeze Mountain, Windy Point and Thompson Hill

Named high points inside the unit include Breeze Mountain at 7,007 feet, Windy Point at 6,773 feet, Thompson Hill at 6,494 feet, Williams Fork Mountains at 8,456 feet and Daton Peak at 8,206 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Pronghorn live in the open and trust their eyes, which is the whole problem.

Holding ground: Daton Gulch, Sage Creek Canyon and Scotchmans Gulch

Below them sit Daton Gulch at 6,638 feet, Sage Creek Canyon at 6,628 feet, Scotchmans Gulch at 6,553 feet, Temple Gulch at 6,462 feet and Butcherknife Gulch at 6,451 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Pick the one with the least road on its upwind side.

Public ground to start from: Yampa River SWA, Grassy Creek STL and Jeffway Gulch STL

CPW lists Yampa River SWA, Grassy Creek STL, Jeffway Gulch STL, Sage Creek STL and Stokes Gulch STL inside this unit as ground open to public hunting. Each property sets its own restrictions, and the agency's page for it is where they are written down. Federal land covers about 6% of the unit on top of those.

The herd this unit belongs to: A-9

CPW does not manage pronghorn unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit A-9, and unit 13 is one piece of it. The rest of A-9 is unit 3, unit 4, unit 5, unit 14, unit 131, unit 214, unit 301 and unit 441. So the objective behind your tag was written for that whole area, and a neighbouring unit in the same herd is a fairer comparison than the statewide figure.

Unit 13 terrain and land status

Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Daton Peak (8,206 ft), Breeze Mountain (7,007 ft)

Holding ground: Grassy Gap (7,054 ft), Twentymile Park (6,721 ft), Grassy Creek STL, Jeffway Gulch STL, Sage Creek STL, Stokes Gulch STL

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 Pronghorn in Unit 13

CPW's own harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 13 at 18% across all manners of take. A number that low means most hunters here go home empty, and the ones who don't put the days in first. The plan: spot from a vehicle or a rise at distance, then plan a stalk that uses the only cover there is — the curve of the ground.

Glassing from Gnat Hill, Breeze Mountain and Windy Point

Take a position on one of Gnat Hill (7,135 ft), Breeze Mountain (7,007 ft), Windy Point (6,773 ft) and Thompson Hill (6,494 ft) and be on it before light. Work the morning with the air falling away from you, then accept that by mid-morning the wind has reversed and the plan has to change with it. Glass the edges first, then the shaded timber, then the edges again as the light goes. On the rut hunts, early-season bucks hold does and can be decoyed where the law allows it.

Getting past the roads

Where unit 13 sits inside A-9

Across A-9, CPW's 2023 pronghorn success runs 100% in unit 5, 86% in unit 4, 62% in unit 3, 42% in unit 441 and 41% in unit 301. That puts unit 13 behind 6 of the 7 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 5 carried the better number in the same herd — check its tag count before you read that as an easier hunt.

The way in: U.S. 40, Routt CR 179 and Routt CR 29

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones CPW draws the boundary with: U.S. 40, Routt CR 179, Routt CR 29, Colo. 317 and Colo. 13. Those are its edges, not its interior — useful because they are where you leave the pavement, and useless for telling you what the inside is like. Park on the boundary and walk; a unit you can only enter from its rim rewards whoever is willing to leave the truck at the rim.

A first plan from the pins on this page

What a day here costs you

What we can't tell you

Some of the ground named above carries no land-status flag we trust, so check ownership on a current layer before you hunt it.

Colorado rules that decide your day

Summarised from CPW regulations. They change — read the current regulations and your permit-tag before you hunt.

Legal shooting hours

Big game may be taken from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset.

Motorized retrieval

Tagging

Validate and attach your carcass tag before the animal is moved, and keep evidence of sex attached until the carcass reaches your home or a processor.

Leaving meat

Abandoning edible meat is illegal. CPW counts the four quarters and the loins.

Where you may not shoot

Occupied structures — No discharging a firearm within 50 yards of a developed campsite, and never toward an occupied building.
Roads — No shooting from or across a public road, and no shooting from a motor vehicle.

Pronghorn: where to put the shot

Broadside, straight up the front leg, a third of the way into the body. Pronghorn are shallow-chested and the lungs sit forward.

Shots to refuse

Range it, then range it again. Open country makes 400 yards look like 250.
Wait for the buck to stop. Nobody kills a running pronghorn cleanly on purpose.
Mind the backdrop. A miss carries a long way across a flat.

Plan the carry: roughly 30– 45 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — one large cooler with ice already in it. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

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Pronghorn Success Rates

All manners of take18%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 13 at 18% — 6 animals taken by 35 hunters. The hunter count is large enough for the percentage to mean something and small enough that a good or bad year still moves it.

Pronghorn Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season doe only (resident)	1	2	50.0%	—
Archery — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Archery — 1st Season buck only (resident)	5	22	22.7%	—
Archery — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	3	7	42.9%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (resident)	5	8	62.5%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (resident)	7	23	30.4%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (resident)	5	65	7.7%	—
Rifle — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	1	1	100.0%	1
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (resident)	8	42	19.0%	—
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (nonresident)	0	3	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	10	85	11.8%	1
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	3	9	33.3%	2
Rifle — 5th Season buck only (resident)	7	30	23.3%	2
Rifle — 5th Season buck only (nonresident)	1	8	12.5%	3

Data from 2023 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.

Open in Draw Odds Engine

CPW's 2026 draw recap for pronghorn in unit 13, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

AM013O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 85 applicants for 10 licences, 11.8% drawn, 1 preference point needed
AM013P5R — Rifle, 5th Season, Buck Only, resident: 30 applicants for 7 licences, 23.3% drawn, 2 preference points needed
AM013O1M — Muzzleloader, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 23 applicants for 7 licences, 30.4% drawn, no preference points needed
AM013O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Buck Only, resident: 22 applicants for 5 licences, 22.7% drawn, no preference points needed

Colorado runs a pure preference-point draw, so the point figure above is the requirement the agency published for that code in that year, not a forecast for the next one. There are 3 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Unit Logistics & Expectations

Planning Notes

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RV Sites

USFS campgrounds near Walden; RV parks in Walden.

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Camp Sites

Multiple USFS developed sites; dispersed camping on both national forests.

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Trailer Access

Paved CO-14 and CO-125; USFS roads mostly trailer-capable.

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Water

Michigan River, Illinois River, and numerous tributaries.

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Road Conditions

Paved primary; USFS gravel beyond, some high-clearance.

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Terrain Difficulty

Moderate. 8,000–11,000 ft.

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Hunting Pressure

Moderate to heavy in rifle seasons.

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Weather

North Park gets cold fast; early snow by third rifle is common.

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Cell Service

Reliable near Walden; spotty in the forests.

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Nearest Town

Walden

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 13?

Unit 13 lies in Moffat and Routt counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north by U.S. 40; on the east by Routt CR 179, Trout Creek, Fish Creek; on the south by Routt CR 29 and Colo. 317; on the west by Colo. 13.

What is the elk success rate in unit 13?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 13 at 27% across all manners of take, and archery 25%, muzzleloader 50% and rifle 27% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

What is the pronghorn success rate in unit 13?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put pronghorn success in unit 13 at 18% across all manners of take. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

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Sources & Verification

Every fact on this page is tied to a primary source below. Last fact-checked 2026-10-23.

Colorado Big Game Hunting Brochure — Game Management Unit (GMU) Descriptions (pp. 79-80-81-82) — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: GMU boundary description, Counties the unit lies in, Data analysis unit (DAU) the unit belongs to · accessed 2026-10-22
2023 Colorado Elk Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for elk in unit 13, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22
CPW CPWAdminData feature service — GMU and sheep/goat unit boundaries — Colorado Parks and Wildlife GIS Unit · supports: Mapped extent of the unit, Which named ground falls inside the unit line · accessed 2026-10-22
2023 Colorado Pronghorn Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for pronghorn in unit 13, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22