Colorado Elk Mule Deer Black Bear

Unit 2 (Douglas Mountain)

Colorado Hunting Guide — Elk, Mule Deer, Black Bear

Unit 2, Douglas Mountain, sits in the far northwest corner of Colorado in Moffat County. It runs from the Yampa River north to the Wyoming line, between the Green River on the west and the Little Snake River on the east. CPW's unit material gives no per-unit elk breakdown, so we work from the boundary, landforms and roads. Settle land access before anything else.

View Draw Odds Colorado Hunting Guide

🏔️

87%

Public Land

⛰️

5,080–7,208 ft

Sampled elevation

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 2

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 2 guide around your hunt: three ranked spots with morning, afternoon and evening plays, a day-by-day plan, topo maps with every pin numbered, a camp and access plan, the legal and retrieval rules for this unit, shot discipline, a meat-care and pack-out plan, and a pre-trip checklist. Every coordinate sits on land recorded as public.

Elk guide Mule Deer guide Black Bear guide

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Elk Hunting in Unit 2

Where Unit 2 Elk Live: Boundary Rivers, Holding Valleys and High Glassing Points

CPW's own unit material for Douglas Mountain gives a boundary description and nothing on where the elk are. It doesn't say which drainages hold them or how they move through the season. We won't pretend otherwise. What follows comes from the unit's edges, its landforms, and our terrain read. Treat it as a scouting plan, not a report.

The frame: Yampa, Green, Little Snake and the Wyoming line

The legal description puts Wyoming on the north, the Little Snake River on the east and the Yampa River on the south. The west edge follows the Green River, then CRs 34 and 10, Colo. 318 and CR 10N, which is Irish Canyon Road. That's a boundary, not an elk map. It does tell you how you'll get in. Coming off Colo. 318 or CR 10N, you're entering on the west line. The unit is big, roughly 1,190 square miles, and it's all Moffat County.

Elevation runs from about 5,080 feet at the low end to a mean near 6,476. This is lower, drier country than most Colorado elk units. Expect sage, juniper and broken breaks, with the timber and the better elk habitat higher on the ridges.

Holding country: Van Noy Valley, Peterson Valley, Racetrack Flat

Our terrain read flags three spots as holding country: Van Noy Valley (about 7,731 feet), Peterson Valley (about 7,311) and Racetrack Flat (about 7,112). They're the higher, more open pockets, and that's where we'd start. Nobody has counted elk in them for us, so confirm with fresh sign before you commit a camp.

The high points that give you a view

The glassing perches are Lookout Mountain (8,118), Allred Peak (7,964), Buck Ridge (7,929), Limestone Ridge (7,911), Reds Knob (7,715) and The Bears Ears (7,668). All are in Moffat County and read as public ground on our map. Lower options include Ant Hills, Dry Mountain, John Weller Mesa, Sevenmile Ridge and Vermillion Bluffs. Sort them by what they overlook. A summit above one of the holding valleys is worth more than a taller one over empty sage.

Settle ownership before you scout

Our ownership read for this unit is unreliable. It comes back as one block of private or other land and doesn't separate out public parcels. We don't trust that number, and the landforms above do read as public. Still, don't assume access. Pull a current parcel map and confirm that each ridge and valley you want is legal to walk before you spend a day driving to it.

Unit 2 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

5,080–7,208 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,476 ft ; peaks can run higher.
1,192 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.

Who owns the ground

Private / Other — 100%

Roughly 0% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

11 tanks
24 stream segments
20 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: Lookout Mountain (8,118 ft), Allred Peak (7,964 ft), Buck Ridge (7,929 ft), Reds Knob (7,715 ft)

Holding ground: Van Noy Valley (7,731 ft), Racetrack Flat (7,112 ft), Holland Draw (7,025 ft), Browns Park SWA, East Boone Draw STL

Every one of these was tested against the unit polygon before it went on the map. They are starting points, not agency recommendations.

Hunting Unit 2 Elk: Glassing Ridges, Working Water and Planning the Day

Without agency elk numbers, you have to do your own scouting. The good part is that the glassing structure here is obvious. The ridges are spaced to look into the valleys, and the roads are simple.

Glass from Lookout Mountain, Buck Ridge and Limestone Ridge

Be on your glass before first light. Elk in open country like this feed late and move to cover early, so the useful window is short. Pick a perch that looks over Van Noy Valley, Peterson Valley or Racetrack Flat. Sit on it until the sun is well up, then glass the shaded pockets and north-facing timber where bedded elk will be.

Mornings, thermals usually drift downhill and evenings they rise. Set up above the animals and keep your wind in mind when you move. If your perch gives you the view but the wrong wind, drop off the back and come around instead of stalking straight at them.

Springs and tanks

The named springs on the maps include Lang, Chokecherry, Limestone, Daisy, Logging, Thompson, Jack, Five, Hillside, Spence, G, Dans Hole, Two Bar and Coffeepot. We can't tell you which ones are flowing or which ones have elk on them. Check each against the topo before you go. In dry country, a reliable spring or tank near good feed is where you want to be at dusk. There are also about 11 mapped stock tanks and streams scattered through the unit. Sit one from a distance rather than walking up to it.

Roads, pressure and a realistic day

The named roads are county graded gravel: CR 10N, CR 63, County Road 138, CR 4 and County Road 34. A 2WD vehicle and a small trailer will handle them in dry weather. Wet clay in this country is a different matter, so check conditions first. We have no harvest or pressure figures for Unit 2, so ask around in Dinosaur and Browns Park, or call the CPW office, about hunter numbers and how elk are using the unit this year.

A realistic day looks like this. Drive in before dawn on a county road, glass a holding valley from a high point until mid-morning, then hike to a likely bed or water source for the evening. Pack out with more daylight than you think you need, because the miles between ridges add up. Check the CPW brochure for season dates, weapon rules and any access restrictions before you go.

Getting in and staying out: unit 2

Named routes and what they need

CR 10N — 10.4 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 63 — 10.1 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 138 — 7.5 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 4 — 5.7 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 34 — 4.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)

Ratings come from road data, not from a drive this season. Check current conditions with the managing office before you commit a trailer.

Nearest services

Browns Park — 35.7 mi · no services listed
Dinosaur — 43.3 mi · groceries
Dutch John — 47.2 mi · no services listed
Rangely — 48 mi · fuel
Baggs — 49.3 mi · no services listed

Developed camps

Box Elder River Camp 3
Laddie Park River Camp 1
Anderson Hole River Camp
Big Joe River Camp
Teepee Hole River Camp

Season weather and signal

Jan34° / 7° · 0.9" precip
Aug86° / 50° · 1" precip
Sep76° / 41° · 1.3" precip
Oct62° / 30° · 1.4" precip
Nov47° / 19° · 1" precip
Dec35° / 8° · 0.9" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 21% of the unit. Plan on being out of contact and tell someone your route.

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 take59%

Muzzleloader71%

Rifle60%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 2 at 59% — 100 animals taken by 170 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.

Muzzleloader — 71% success, 10 taken by 14 hunters
Rifle — 60% success, 88 taken by 148 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 either sex (resident)	21	1,512	1.4%	28
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	5	979	0.5%	33
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (resident)	4	282	1.4%	5
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	2	31	6.5%	6
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (resident)	17	162	10.5%	2
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	6	24	25.0%	2
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (resident)	15	110	13.6%	2
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (nonresident)	4	48	8.3%	4
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (resident)	13	128	10.2%	2
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (nonresident)	6	27	22.2%	2
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (resident)	16	91	17.6%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (nonresident)	3	31	9.7%	2
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	7	388	1.8%	25
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	1	550	0.2%	33
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (resident)	3	22	13.6%	1
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	1	8	12.5%	3
Muzzleloader — 1st Season bull only (resident)	7	189	3.7%	27
Muzzleloader — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	1	158	0.6%	34

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 2, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

EE002E1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 1,512 applicants for 21 licences, 1.4% drawn, 28 preference points needed
EE002E1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 979 applicants for 5 licences, 0.5% drawn, 33 preference points needed
EE002O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 550 applicants for 1 licences, 0.2% drawn, 33 preference points needed
EE002O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 388 applicants for 7 licences, 1.8% drawn, 25 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 14 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 2

Unit 2 (Douglas Mountain) fills the northwest corner of Colorado, entirely in Moffat County, between the Wyoming line and the Yampa River. CPW publishes no per-unit mule deer breakdown for it, so we're working from the boundary, terrain and roads. It's about 1,195 square miles of open, mostly low country. Land status decides whether this tag is worth your time. We can't confirm how much is public, so map it before you commit.

Where to Look in Unit 2: Valleys, Ridges and the River Edges

Settle land status first

CPW's unit material doesn't give a public-land figure for Unit 2, and our own ownership read can't resolve one. It shows the whole unit as undifferentiated private/other, which we don't believe. Plenty of the named summits and valleys look like public ground. Still, we can't hand you a percentage. Before you spend a day driving, lay a current BLM and state land map over the county roads below and confirm where the public ground actually touches the road.

What the boundary tells you

CPW describes the unit as bounded on the north by Wyoming, on the east by the Little Snake River, on the south by the Yampa River and on the west by the Green River, CRs 34 and 10, Colo. 318 and CR 10N (Irish Canyon Rd.). That's a legal outline, not a map of where deer stand. It does tell you how you get in. Colo. 318 and CR 10N are the west-side doors, and the Yampa and Little Snake frame the south and east. Dinosaur and Browns Park are the nearest towns. Gas and groceries are a long way from the back of this unit.

Van Noy Valley, Peterson Valley and Racetrack Flat

Our terrain read tags these three as holding country, meaning open ground where animals can feed and bed within reach of cover. Van Noy Valley is the highest at about 7,731 feet. Peterson Valley sits near 7,311 and Racetrack Flat near 7,112. None of them has a published deer count behind it. Treat them as the first places to put glass, not as promises. Start with whichever one has a public-land road to its edge.

High ground for glassing

The summit list gives you the vantage points. Lookout Mountain (8,118 feet) is the highest, then Allred Peak (7,964), Buck Ridge (7,929), Limestone Ridge (7,911), Reds Knob (7,715) and The Bears Ears (7,668). Ant Hills and The Nipple sit a little lower. Lower knobs such as Sugarloaf Butte, John Weller Mesa and Blue Hill are worth a look if the big peaks sit in private ground or you want a shorter hike. Pick one that overlooks a valley above, then work down.

Water and the low country

We count 24 streams, 20 lakes and 11 stock tanks in the unit. Nobody has told us which ones hold water in your season, so confirm before you plan around one. Named springs include Lang, Chokecherry, Limestone, Daisy, Logging, Five, Coffeepot and Two Bar. We can't place them for you, so find them on a topo before you count on them. The lowest ground, down to about 5,080 feet, runs along the river edges. Early in a warm season, that's where we'd expect deer to hang around water.

Unit 2 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

5,080–7,208 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,476 ft ; peaks can run higher.
1,192 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.

Who owns the ground

Private / Other — 100%

Roughly 0% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

11 tanks
24 stream segments
20 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: Lookout Mountain (8,118 ft), Allred Peak (7,964 ft), Buck Ridge (7,929 ft), Reds Knob (7,715 ft)

Holding ground: Van Noy Valley (7,731 ft), Racetrack Flat (7,112 ft), Holland Draw (7,025 ft), Browns Park SWA, East Boone Draw 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 Unit 2 Without a Deer Map

Glass from the ridges, then move

You're hunting blind on specifics, so use the ridges to cover ground. Get to a point like Buck Ridge, Limestone Ridge or Reds Knob before first light. Glass the valley floors and the shaded heads of draws while the light is low. Give each place an hour or so. If you see nothing, drop to the next summit instead of sitting. This is big, open country, and covering it with optics beats covering it with boots.

Use the three holding areas as a loop

Van Noy Valley, Peterson Valley and Racetrack Flat are the logical backbone of a scouting plan. Check each one at dawn and dusk, then note where deer slip off to bed. Most of the morning movement we'd expect runs from open feed to cover, so the line between the two is where you set up. We don't have CPW harvest numbers or herd narrative for this unit. Your own two or three days of glassing are the best data you'll get.

Roads, trailers and getting out

The named roads we can see are all graded gravel: CR 10N (about 10 miles), CR 63 (10), County Road 138 (7.5), CR 4 (5.7) and County Road 34 (4.2). That's 2WD and small-trailer country when it's dry. A storm can change that fast, so watch the forecast before you head up a spur. Because ownership is uncertain, stay on roads you can confirm are public, and don't cross a fence line on a guess. Check the CPW brochure for any access, motorised-retrieval or vehicle restrictions that apply to your season. We haven't got those specifics for this unit.

Weapons and a realistic day

We can't give you weapon-specific advice for this unit from the information we have. In open country like this, rifle hunters will lean on the glassing points. Archers and muzzleloaders should plan on getting close to water or a bedding edge, which means scouting those spots ahead of the season. A realistic day is a pre-dawn climb, a long glassing session, a mid-day move to a second vantage and an evening return to the best-looking valley. If you haven't found animals on public ground by midday on day one, change drainages rather than waiting.

Getting in and staying out: unit 2

Named routes and what they need

CR 10N — 10.4 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 63 — 10.1 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 138 — 7.5 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 4 — 5.7 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 34 — 4.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)

Ratings come from road data, not from a drive this season. Check current conditions with the managing office before you commit a trailer.

Nearest services

Browns Park — 35.7 mi · no services listed
Dinosaur — 43.3 mi · groceries
Dutch John — 47.2 mi · no services listed
Rangely — 48 mi · fuel
Baggs — 49.3 mi · no services listed

Developed camps

Box Elder River Camp 3
Laddie Park River Camp 1
Anderson Hole River Camp
Big Joe River Camp
Teepee Hole River Camp

Season weather and signal

Jan34° / 7° · 0.9" precip
Aug86° / 50° · 1" precip
Sep76° / 41° · 1.3" precip
Oct62° / 30° · 1.4" precip
Nov47° / 19° · 1" precip
Dec35° / 8° · 0.9" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 21% of the unit. Plan on being out of contact and tell someone your route.

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.

Mule Deer: 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.

Shots to refuse

Nothing behind or overlapping the animal you picked.
Your maximum range is the farthest you have shot a three-shot group into a paper plate from the rest you are carrying.
Pass the shot you are talking yourself into.

Plan the carry: roughly 40– 120 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — two large coolers. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

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Mule Deer Success Rates

All manners of take57%

Rifle66%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 2 at 57% — 30 animals taken by 53 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.

Rifle — 66% success, 26 taken by 40 hunters

Mule Deer Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season buck only (resident)	6	41	14.6%	4
Archery — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	2	65	3.1%	16
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (resident)	6	40	15.0%	4
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	2	28	7.1%	14
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	13	196	6.6%	11
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	3	193	1.6%	24
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	13	221	5.9%	16
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	3	238	1.3%	24

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 mule deer in unit 2, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

DM002O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 238 applicants for 3 licences, 1.3% drawn, 24 preference points needed
DM002O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, resident: 221 applicants for 13 licences, 5.9% drawn, 16 preference points needed
DM002O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, resident: 196 applicants for 13 licences, 6.6% drawn, 11 preference points needed
DM002O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 193 applicants for 3 licences, 1.6% drawn, 24 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 4 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Black Bear Hunting in Unit 2

Unit 2 (Douglas Mountain) sits in the far northwest corner of Colorado, entirely in Moffat County. It's about 1,195 square miles between the Wyoming line, the Little Snake River, the Yampa River and the Green River. CPW publishes no bear-specific breakdown for it, so you're working from terrain. What decides this tag is access. Confirm what's public before you commit to a drainage.

Where to Look for Bears in Unit 2: Boundary Rivers, High Ridges and Open Valleys

The box you're hunting in

CPW's boundary description puts Unit 2 under the Wyoming line on the north, with the Little Snake River on the east and the Yampa River on the south. The west edge is the Green River, then CRs 34 and 10, Colo. 318 and CR 10N, which is Irish Canyon Road. All of it is Moffat County. A hunter coming in on Colo. 318 or CR 10N is on the unit's west side.

Be clear about what that description is. It's a legal boundary, not a map of bears. CPW's unit material doesn't say where bears concentrate in Unit 2, and we won't pretend it does. What follows is our read of the terrain.

Settle the ownership question first

Our land-ownership read doesn't separate public from private here. It comes back as all private or other. Yet every named summit and valley we have is flagged as public ground. Those two facts don't sit together comfortably. Before you pick a hunting area, get a current BLM and parcel map and check it against the ground. In a unit this size, a ridge you can see isn't always a ridge you can walk onto.

High ground for glassing: Lookout Mountain and the ridge line

Lookout Mountain, at 8,118 feet, is the tallest point we have. Allred Peak (7,964), Buck Ridge (7,929) and Limestone Ridge (7,911) come next, then Reds Knob (7,715) and The Bears Ears (7,668). Those are your vantage points. Lower butte country, including Sugarloaf Butte (7,205), Vermillion Bluffs (7,201) and John Weller Mesa (7,114), gives you a second tier of lookouts over the broken ground below.

Elevation across the unit runs from about 5,080 feet to a mean near 6,476. That's mostly mid-elevation country with a few real summits on top of it.

Holding country: Van Noy Valley, Peterson Valley, Racetrack Flat

Our terrain read flags three spots as places animals could settle in: Van Noy Valley (7,731 feet), Peterson Valley (7,311) and Racetrack Flat (7,112). Nobody has counted bears in them for us. They're the first places to put glass on, not promises.

Water

There are 24 streams, 20 lakes and 11 tanks on our terrain read. Named springs include Chokecherry Spring, Limestone Spring, Lang Spring, Daisy Spring, Logging Spring and Coffeepot Spring. We can't tell you which are running in your season or exactly where they sit, so confirm each one on a map and on foot.

Unit 2 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

5,080–7,208 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,476 ft ; peaks can run higher.
1,192 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.

Who owns the ground

Private / Other — 100%

Roughly 0% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

11 tanks
24 stream segments
20 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: Lookout Mountain (8,118 ft), Allred Peak (7,964 ft), Buck Ridge (7,929 ft), Reds Knob (7,715 ft)

Holding ground: Van Noy Valley (7,731 ft), Racetrack Flat (7,112 ft), Holland Draw (7,025 ft), Browns Park SWA, East Boone Draw STL

Every one of these was tested against the unit polygon before it went on the map. They are starting points, not agency recommendations.

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Hunting Bears in Unit 2: Glass the Ridges, Check the Water, Walk Away from the Roads

Glass from Lookout Mountain and Buck Ridge

Start with the big lookouts. Get on Lookout Mountain, Allred Peak or Buck Ridge before first light and stay until the sun is well up. Glass again for the last two hours of daylight. Bears are easy to miss at midday. Work the edges of openings and the heads of draws, and watch Van Noy and Peterson valleys from above before you drop into them.

Pick your wind before you pick your route. In rough country the morning air usually sinks and the evening air climbs. Plan every approach to a spotted bear with that in mind.

Use the gravel county roads, then leave them

CR 10N (10.4 miles), CR 63 (10.1), County Road 138 (7.5), CR 4 (5.7) and County Road 34 (4.2) are all graded gravel. A 2WD truck and a small trailer will manage them. Colo. 318 and CR 10N are the paved secondary roads that bring you in at the unit boundary. They're easy, and other hunters will find them just as easily.

Use the roads to move between lookouts. Then walk off them. A bear you spot from a ridge a mile or two from the nearest county road is a better bet than one you jump from the truck window. Don't count on a road reaching a drainage until your map confirms it.

Sit water, but verify it first

Tanks and springs can pin down a hunt in dry country. We'd check Chokecherry Spring, Limestone Spring and Lang Spring in daylight a few days ahead if you can scout. Look for tracks, droppings and torn-up ground. If a spring is dry or shows nothing, don't build a hunt around it. The 11 tanks on our terrain read are worth the same check.

Rules and a realistic day

We have no CPW bear regulations or harvest numbers for this unit to pass on. Read the current bear rules and season dates in the CP

Getting in and staying out: unit 2

Named routes and what they need

CR 10N — 10.4 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 63 — 10.1 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 138 — 7.5 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 4 — 5.7 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
County Road 34 — 4.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)

Ratings come from road data, not from a drive this season. Check current conditions with the managing office before you commit a trailer.

Nearest services

Browns Park — 35.7 mi · no services listed
Dinosaur — 43.3 mi · groceries
Dutch John — 47.2 mi · no services listed
Rangely — 48 mi · fuel
Baggs — 49.3 mi · no services listed

Developed camps

Box Elder River Camp 3
Laddie Park River Camp 1
Anderson Hole River Camp
Big Joe River Camp
Teepee Hole River Camp

Season weather and signal

Jan34° / 7° · 0.9" precip
Aug86° / 50° · 1" precip
Sep76° / 41° · 1.3" precip
Oct62° / 30° · 1.4" precip
Nov47° / 19° · 1" precip
Dec35° / 8° · 0.9" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 21% of the unit. Plan on being out of contact and tell someone your route.

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.

Black Bear: 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.

Shots to refuse

Nothing behind or overlapping the animal you picked.
Your maximum range is the farthest you have shot a three-shot group into a paper plate from the rest you are carrying.
Pass the shot you are talking yourself into.

Plan the carry: roughly 40– 120 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — two large coolers. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

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Black Bear Success Rates

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates carry no black bear row for unit 2 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. CPW's current harvest estimates are the place to check before you apply.

Black Bear Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	3	3	100.0%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (resident)	5	25	20.0%	1
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	0	6	0.0%	—
Rifle — 5th Season either sex (resident)	4	8	50.0%	—
Rifle — 5th Season either sex (nonresident)	1	2	50.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (resident)	4	5	80.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—

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 black bear in unit 2, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

BE002O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 25 applicants for 5 licences, 20% drawn, 1 preference point needed
BE002O5R — Rifle, 5th Season, Either Sex, resident: 8 applicants for 4 licences, 50% drawn, no preference points needed
BE002O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 6 applicants for 0 licences, 0% drawn, no preference points needed
BE002O1M — Muzzleloader, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 5 applicants for 4 licences, 80% 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 2 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

⛺

Camp Sites

15 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit, including Box Elder River Camp 3, Laddie Park River Camp 1 and Anderson Hole River Camp.

🛣️

Road Conditions

CR 10N, CR 63 and County Road 138 are the named routes in the unit. Roughly 15 mi paved, 12 mi gravel and 0 mi four-wheel-drive.

🥾

Terrain Difficulty

5,080–7,208 ft, averaging 6,476. Enough relief to separate summer from winter range.

👥

Hunting Pressure

Our land-status read for this unit is approximate, so treat any pressure estimate from it with suspicion and check a current ownership layer.

🌦️

Weather

Season normals: Sep 76/41°F, 1.3 in.; Oct 62/30°F, 1.4 in.; Nov 47/19°F, 1 in..

📱

Cell Service

Verizon 21%, AT&T 14%, T-Mobile 7% of the unit area — modelled coverage, not measured. Assume no signal off the paved road.

🏘️

Nearest Town

Browns Park (36 mi), Dinosaur (43 mi), Dutch John (47 mi)

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 2?

Unit 2 lies in Moffat County, and CPW has it bounded on the north by WY; on the east by Little Snake River; on the south by Yampa River; on the west by Green River, CRs 34 & 10, Colo. 318 and CR 10N (Irish Canyon Rd.). It covers about 1,192 square miles.

What is the elk success rate in unit 2?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 2 at 59% across all manners of take, and muzzleloader 71% and rifle 60% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

Where do you stay and resupply for a unit 2 hunt?

The nearest services our logistics pipeline finds for unit 2 are at Browns Park, about 36 miles from the unit's centre, with Dinosaur at about 43 miles. There are also 15 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit 2?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 2 at 57% across all manners of take, and rifle 66% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

What is the black bear success rate in unit 2?

CPW publishes no black bear success figure we can tie to unit 2 on its own — the 2023 harvest tables either omit the unit or report it in a grouping we could not read back to it reliably. Rather than quote a statewide average as though it were measured here, we say so. Check CPW's current harvest estimates before you apply.

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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 2, 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 Deer Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for mule deer in unit 2, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22

Unit 2 (Douglas Mountain)

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 2

Elk Hunting in Unit 2

Where Unit 2 Elk Live: Boundary Rivers, Holding Valleys and High Glassing Points

The frame: Yampa, Green, Little Snake and the Wyoming line

Holding country: Van Noy Valley, Peterson Valley, Racetrack Flat

The high points that give you a view

Settle ownership before you scout

Unit 2 terrain and land status

The lay of it

Who owns the ground

Water on the ground

Named features inside the unit

Hunting Unit 2 Elk: Glassing Ridges, Working Water and Planning the Day

Elk Success Rates

Elk Draw Odds

Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 2

Where to Look in Unit 2: Valleys, Ridges and the River Edges

Settle land status first

What the boundary tells you

Van Noy Valley, Peterson Valley and Racetrack Flat

High ground for glassing

Water and the low country

Unit 2 terrain and land status

The lay of it

Who owns the ground

Water on the ground

Named features inside the unit

How to Hunt Unit 2 Without a Deer Map

Mule Deer Success Rates

Mule Deer Draw Odds

Black Bear Hunting in Unit 2

Where to Look for Bears in Unit 2: Boundary Rivers, High Ridges and Open Valleys

Hunting Bears in Unit 2: Glass the Ridges, Check the Water, Walk Away from the Roads

Black Bear Success Rates

Black Bear Draw Odds

Unit Logistics & Expectations

Explore Related Units

Unit 1 — Elk

Unit 201 — Elk

Unit 2 — Mule Deer

Frequently Asked Questions

Free Hunt Planning Tools

Plan Your Hunt with ProHunt Pro

Sources & Verification