Colorado Mule Deer Elk Bear

Unit 21

Colorado Hunting Guide — Mule Deer, Elk, Bear

Unit 21 lies in Rio Blanco and Garfield counties and covers about 887 square miles. Ground runs from 5,277 to 8,969 feet. CPW bounds it by White River and Monument Gulch among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 89%. Federal land covers about 87% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Colorado Hunting Guide

🏔️

87%

Public Land

⛰️

5,277–8,543 ft

Sampled elevation

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 21

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 21 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.

Mule Deer guide Elk guide Bear guide

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Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 21

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 21

CPW draws an exact line around unit 21 and says nothing about where the mule deer stand inside it. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Rio Blanco and Garfield counties. It runs to about 887 square miles.

The lines of the unit: White River, Monument Gulch and Colo. 64

CPW has unit 21 bounded on the north by White River; on the east by Monument Gulch, Colo. 64, Monument Gulch Rd. and Rio Blanco CRs 103 & 26; on the south by Douglas Creek-Roan Creek divide, Douglas Creek-Salt Creeks divide, Evacuation Creek-Salt Creeks divide and Bitter Creek-West Salt Creek divide; on the west by UT. That is a legal description, not a habitat map. 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: Pike Ridge, Scare Mountain and Rat Hole Ridge

Named high points inside the unit include Pike Ridge at 8,969 feet, Scare Mountain at 8,858 feet, Rat Hole Ridge at 8,726 feet, Razorback Ridge at 8,596 feet and Oil Spring Mountain at 8,566 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Mule deer on open country use every fold and draw there is, and almost none of the flat.

Holding ground: East Fork Sawmill Gulch, Middle Fork Sawmill Gulch and Williams Park

Below them sit East Fork Sawmill Gulch at 7,734 feet, Middle Fork Sawmill Gulch at 7,734 feet, Williams Park at 7,582 feet, West Fork Sawmill Gulch at 7,474 feet and Windy Canyon at 7,457 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Two you can watch from a single knob is worth more than five you have to drive between.

Public ground to start from: Piceance SWA - Square S Summer Range Unit

CPW lists Piceance SWA - Square S Summer Range Unit 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 87% of the unit on top of those.

Water in this unit

The water inside the unit line comes to 541 mapped stream reaches, 7 lakes and 234 stock tanks. On ground with that many tanks, knowing which two or three hold water in your season is the most useful thing a scouting trip can tell you.

The herd this unit belongs to: D-11

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-11, and unit 21 is one piece of it. The rest of D-11 is unit 30. Read a neighbour in the same herd before you read the state average — the herd, not the unit line, is what the agency is steering.

Unit 21 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

5,277–8,543 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,824 ft ; peaks can run higher.
886.8 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.

Who owns the ground

BLM — 15%
Private / Other — 85%

Roughly 15% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

234 tanks
541 stream segments
7 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: Pike Ridge (8,969 ft), Scare Mountain (8,858 ft), Rat Hole Ridge (8,726 ft), Razorback Ridge (8,596 ft)

Holding ground: Right Roberts Canyon (7,900 ft), Brewster Canyon (7,887 ft), East Fork Sawmill Gulch (7,734 ft), Piceance SWA - Square S Summer Range Unit

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 Mule Deer in Unit 21

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 21 at archery 57% and rifle 89%. A number like that comes from few tags and a short season, not from easy hunting. The plan: glass the broken edges at first light, then sit still and keep glassing the same ground.

Glassing from Texas Mountain, Atchee Ridge and Ponderosa Point

Take a position on one of Texas Mountain (8,455 ft), Atchee Ridge (8,390 ft), Ponderosa Point (8,191 ft) and Cathedral Bluffs (8,185 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. Glass the edges first, then the shaded timber, then the edges again as the light goes. On the rut hunts, late-season hunts put bucks with doe groups and moving in daylight.

Water against feed

There are 541 mapped stream reaches and 234 tanks inside the unit, so water is rarely the limiting factor. Where water is everywhere, feed is what concentrates animals, so hunt the feed and treat water as a convenience. A tank with no tracks is a tank with no reason to sit on it.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Season normals here run Sep 79/46°F, Oct 64/33°F and Nov 47/21°F. Warm afternoons compress the hunting into the first and last hour, and make meat care the day's real problem rather than the shot. Precipitation runs about 1.3 in. in Sep, 1.3 in. in Oct and 0.8 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

Getting past the roads: CR 103 and CR 201

CO 64 is the paved frame, which is also where everyone else starts. There is little true four-wheel-drive road here, so distance from the gravel is the only thing separating you from the next hunter.

Where unit 21 sits inside D-11

Across D-11, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 85% in unit 21 and 55% in unit 30. Unit 21 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.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Pike Ridge, Scare Mountain, Rat Hole Ridge and Razorback Ridge as places to see from, and Right Roberts Canyon, Brewster Canyon, East Fork Sawmill Gulch and Piceance SWA - Square S Summer Range Unit as ground to watch. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the unit line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Walk between two of them rather than driving between four, and you will learn more in a day.

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.

Getting in and staying out: unit 21

Named routes and what they need

CR 103 — 14.9 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 201 — 9.3 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CO 64 — 7.8 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CR 256;BLM C122 — 5.8 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 122 — 5.6 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 26 — 5.5 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

Rangely — 15.9 mi · fuel
Dinosaur — 28.8 mi · no services listed
Mack — 43.9 mi · no services listed
Loma — 45.7 mi · no services listed
De Beque — 47.8 mi · fuel

Developed camps

Rangely Camper Park — 20 sites · Fee
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site

Season weather and signal

Jan31° / 7° · 0.7" precip
Aug88° / 55° · 1" precip
Sep79° / 46° · 1.3" precip
Oct64° / 33° · 1.3" precip
Nov47° / 21° · 0.8" precip
Dec32° / 10° · 0.7" 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.

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 take85%

Archery57%

Rifle89%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 21 at 85% — 367 animals taken by 430 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.

Archery — 57% success, 24 taken by 42 hunters
Rifle — 89% success, 334 taken by 374 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.

Mule Deer Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season buck only (resident)	34	165	20.6%	1
Archery — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	12	144	8.3%	8
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (resident)	14	94	14.9%	2
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	5	72	6.9%	7
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	176	1,006	17.5%	3
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	65	743	8.7%	10
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	71	519	13.7%	7
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	17	428	4.0%	21

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

DM021O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, resident: 1,006 applicants for 176 licences, 17.5% drawn, 3 preference points needed
DM021O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 743 applicants for 65 licences, 8.7% drawn, 10 preference points needed
DM021O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, resident: 519 applicants for 71 licences, 13.7% drawn, 7 preference points needed
DM021O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 428 applicants for 17 licences, 4% drawn, 21 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.

Elk Hunting in Unit 21

Unit 21 lies in Rio Blanco and Garfield counties and covers about 887 square miles. Ground runs from 5,277 to 8,969 feet. CPW bounds it by White River and Monument Gulch among others. CPW's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 22%. Federal land covers about 87% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Elk in Unit 21

CPW's material on unit 21 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its elk live. Every place named below sits inside the unit line. Which of them holds animals in your season is for you to find out. The unit lies in Rio Blanco and Garfield counties. It runs to about 887 square miles.

The lines of the unit: White River, Monument Gulch and Colo. 64

CPW has unit 21 bounded on the north by White River; on the east by Monument Gulch, Colo. 64, Monument Gulch Rd. and Rio Blanco CRs 103 & 26; on the south by Douglas Creek-Roan Creek divide, Douglas Creek-Salt Creeks divide, Evacuation Creek-Salt Creeks divide and Bitter Creek-West Salt Creek divide; on the west by UT. Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. Those features are what you will check against the map all week, and the divides among them are the ones that matter.

High ground inside the line: Twin Buttes, Brushy Point and Lone Spring Ridge

Named high points inside the unit include Twin Buttes at 8,523 feet, Brushy Point at 8,497 feet, Lone Spring Ridge at 8,458 feet, Texas Mountain at 8,455 feet and Atchee Ridge at 8,390 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: Deer Canyon, Sawmill Canyon and Seep Gulch

Below them sit Deer Canyon at 7,444 feet, Sawmill Canyon at 7,275 feet, Seep Gulch at 7,266 feet, Sawmill Gulch at 7,253 feet and Sawmill Canyon at 7,164 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Pick the one with the least road on its upwind side.

Public ground to start from: Piceance SWA - Square S Summer Range Unit

Water in this unit

The herd this unit belongs to: E-10

CPW does not manage elk unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit E-10, and unit 21 is one piece of it. The rest of E-10 is unit 22, unit 30, unit 31 and unit 32. Read a neighbour in the same herd before you read the state average — the herd, not the unit line, is what the agency is steering.

Reading the land status

Our ownership read for this unit is approximate — it comes out as Private / Other 85% and BLM 15%, so treat it as a starting point and check a current land-status layer before you plan a route. A grid sample of the unit reads 5,277 to 8,543 feet, and named ground inside the line runs 5,178 to 8,969 feet — take 5,277 to 8,969 as the spread, because the sample is a grid and walks past summits. With 3,692 feet between the two ends, there is enough relief to separate summer range from winter range.

Unit 21 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

5,277–8,543 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,824 ft ; peaks can run higher.
886.8 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.

Who owns the ground

BLM — 15%
Private / Other — 85%

Roughly 15% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

234 tanks
541 stream segments
7 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: Pike Ridge (8,969 ft), Scare Mountain (8,858 ft), Rat Hole Ridge (8,726 ft), Razorback Ridge (8,596 ft)

Holding ground: Right Roberts Canyon (7,900 ft), Brewster Canyon (7,887 ft), East Fork Sawmill Gulch (7,734 ft), Piceance SWA - Square S Summer Range Unit

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 21

CPW's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit 21 at archery 15%, muzzleloader 22% and rifle 21%. That is an ordinary spread for this country, and it rewards whoever scouted. 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 Red Hill, Big Ridge and Rabbit Mountain

Take a position on one of Red Hill (7,737 ft), Big Ridge (7,636 ft), Rabbit Mountain (7,633 ft) and Park Mountain (7,201 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. A tripod is worth more here than another hour of walking. On the rut hunts, September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

Water against feed

There are 541 mapped stream reaches and 234 tanks inside the unit, so water is rarely the limiting factor. Where water is everywhere, feed is what concentrates animals, so hunt the feed and treat water as a convenience. Check the ground around it before you commit an evening to it.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Getting past the roads: CR 103 and CR 201

CO 64 is the paved frame, which is also where everyone else starts. There is little true four-wheel-drive road here, so distance from the gravel is the only thing separating you from the next hunter.

Where unit 21 sits inside E-10

Across E-10, CPW's 2023 elk success runs 24% in unit 31, 19% in unit 21, 18% in unit 22 and 12% in unit 30. That puts unit 21 behind 1 of the 3 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 31 carried the better number in the same herd — check its tag count before you read that as an easier hunt.

A first plan from the pins on this page

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.

Getting in and staying out: unit 21

Named routes and what they need

CR 103 — 14.9 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 201 — 9.3 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CO 64 — 7.8 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CR 256;BLM C122 — 5.8 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 122 — 5.6 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 26 — 5.5 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

Rangely — 15.9 mi · fuel
Dinosaur — 28.8 mi · no services listed
Mack — 43.9 mi · no services listed
Loma — 45.7 mi · no services listed
De Beque — 47.8 mi · fuel

Developed camps

Rangely Camper Park — 20 sites · Fee
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site

Season weather and signal

Jan31° / 7° · 0.7" precip
Aug88° / 55° · 1" precip
Sep79° / 46° · 1.3" precip
Oct64° / 33° · 1.3" precip
Nov47° / 21° · 0.8" precip
Dec32° / 10° · 0.7" 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.

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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Unlock elk tactics for Unit 21

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Elk Success Rates

All manners of take19%

Archery15%

Muzzleloader22%

Rifle21%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 21 at 19% — 369 animals taken by 1,906 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 — 15% success, 96 taken by 633 hunters
Muzzleloader — 22% success, 18 taken by 82 hunters
Rifle — 21% success, 255 taken by 1,191 hunters

Elk Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (resident)	111	197	56.3%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	52	264	19.7%	4
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (resident)	43	200	21.5%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	17	28	60.7%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (resident)	14	25	56.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	104	126	82.5%	—
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (resident)	48	351	13.7%	—
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	8	138	5.8%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (resident)	124	657	18.9%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (nonresident)	44	233	18.9%	2
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (resident)	66	372	17.7%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (nonresident)	17	184	9.2%	2
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (resident)	77	207	37.2%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (nonresident)	5	32	15.6%	—
Rifle — 1st Season bull only (resident)	203	585	34.7%	—
Rifle — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	200	733	27.3%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (resident)	212	349	60.7%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (nonresident)	107	174	61.5%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (resident)	287	961	29.9%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	102	876	11.6%	1
Rifle — 4th Season either sex (resident)	230	663	34.7%	—
Rifle — 4th Season either sex (nonresident)	146	278	52.5%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	3	7	42.9%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	67	151	44.4%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	878	1,327	66.2%	—
Archery — 1st Season cow only (resident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Archery — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	1	51	2.0%	—

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 elk in unit 21, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

EE021V1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 1,327 applicants for 878 licences, 66.2% drawn, no preference points needed
EE021O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 961 applicants for 287 licences, 29.9% drawn, no preference points needed
EE021O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 876 applicants for 102 licences, 11.6% drawn, 1 preference point needed
EE021O4R — Rifle, 4th Season, Either Sex, resident: 663 applicants for 230 licences, 34.7% 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 18 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Bear Hunting in Unit 21

Unit 21 lies in Rio Blanco and Garfield counties and covers about 887 square miles. Ground runs from 5,277 to 8,969 feet. CPW bounds it by White River and Monument Gulch among others. CPW publishes no per-unit black bear success figure we can verify for this unit. Federal land covers about 87% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Black Bear in Unit 21

CPW's material on unit 21 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its black bear 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 Rio Blanco and Garfield counties. It runs to about 887 square miles.

The lines of the unit: White River, Monument Gulch and Colo. 64

CPW has unit 21 bounded on the north by White River; on the east by Monument Gulch, Colo. 64, Monument Gulch Rd. and Rio Blanco CRs 103 & 26; on the south by Douglas Creek-Roan Creek divide, Douglas Creek-Salt Creeks divide, Evacuation Creek-Salt Creeks divide and Bitter Creek-West Salt Creek divide; on the west by UT. Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. 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: Ponderosa Point, Cathedral Bluffs and Red Hill

Named high points inside the unit include Ponderosa Point at 8,191 feet, Cathedral Bluffs at 8,185 feet, Red Hill at 7,737 feet, Big Ridge at 7,636 feet and Rabbit Mountain at 7,633 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Bears on dry country work the drainages with fruit in them and little else.

Holding ground: Slide Canyon, Wet Weather Gulch and Snow Grove Canyon

Below them sit Slide Canyon at 7,134 feet, Wet Weather Gulch at 7,121 feet, Snow Grove Canyon at 7,105 feet, The Shoulder at 7,100 feet and Bear Canyon at 7,092 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Two you can watch from a single knob is worth more than five you have to drive between.

Public ground to start from: Piceance SWA - Square S Summer Range Unit

Water in this unit

The herd this unit belongs to: B-1

CPW does not manage black bear unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit B-1, and unit 21 is one piece of it. The rest of B-1 is unit 22, unit 30, unit 31 and unit 32. That matters twice over: the population objective and the licence numbers are set for the whole area, and the animals move across unit lines inside it without noticing them.

Unit 21 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

5,277–8,543 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 6,824 ft ; peaks can run higher.
886.8 sq mi inside the boundary. Big enough that picking one drainage beats driving three.

Who owns the ground

BLM — 15%
Private / Other — 85%

Roughly 15% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

234 tanks
541 stream segments
7 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: Pike Ridge (8,969 ft), Scare Mountain (8,858 ft), Rat Hole Ridge (8,726 ft), Razorback Ridge (8,596 ft)

Holding ground: Right Roberts Canyon (7,900 ft), Brewster Canyon (7,887 ft), East Fork Sawmill Gulch (7,734 ft), Piceance SWA - Square S Summer Range Unit

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 Black Bear in Unit 21

CPW publishes no black bear success figure for unit 21 that we can tie to this unit alone, so we won't quote one. The plan: find the berry crop first, then glass it morning and evening until something is in it.

Glassing from Gilsonite Hills, White Face Butte and Weaver Ridge

Take a position on one of Gilsonite Hills (7,072 ft), White Face Butte (7,000 ft), Weaver Ridge (6,887 ft) and Banta Ridge (6,506 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. Glass the edges first, then the shaded timber, then the edges again as the light goes. On the rut hunts, September hunts coincide with the feeding push before denning.

Water against feed

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Getting past the roads: CR 103 and CR 201

CO 64 is the paved frame, which is also where everyone else starts. There is little true four-wheel-drive road here, so distance from the gravel is the only thing separating you from the next hunter.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Pike Ridge, Scare Mountain, Rat Hole Ridge and Razorback Ridge as places to see from, and Right Roberts Canyon, Brewster Canyon, East Fork Sawmill Gulch and Piceance SWA - Square S Summer Range Unit as ground to watch. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the unit line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Take the pair you can reach on one road and treat the rest as a second trip.

What a day here costs you

887 square miles is more country than a week will cover, so pick one drainage and learn it rather than driving the unit. The nearest services are at Rangely, about 16 miles out, which is an hour of your morning each way if you sleep there. With 3,266 feet between the lowest and highest ground, the walk back up out of a kill site is the part to plan first. 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. We have no black bear success figure for this unit that survives checking against CPW's own harvest and hunter counts, and we would rather say so than print a statewide average as though it were measured here.

Getting in and staying out: unit 21

Named routes and what they need

CR 103 — 14.9 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 201 — 9.3 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CO 64 — 7.8 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CR 256;BLM C122 — 5.8 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 122 — 5.6 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
CR 26 — 5.5 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

Rangely — 15.9 mi · fuel
Dinosaur — 28.8 mi · no services listed
Mack — 43.9 mi · no services listed
Loma — 45.7 mi · no services listed
De Beque — 47.8 mi · fuel

Developed camps

Rangely Camper Park — 20 sites · Fee
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site

Season weather and signal

Jan31° / 7° · 0.7" precip
Aug88° / 55° · 1" precip
Sep79° / 46° · 1.3" precip
Oct64° / 33° · 1.3" precip
Nov47° / 21° · 0.8" precip
Dec32° / 10° · 0.7" 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.

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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Bear Success Rates

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates carry no black bear row for unit 21 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.

Bear Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	9	11	81.8%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	13	22	59.1%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (resident)	9	12	75.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (resident)	244	325	75.1%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	13	18	72.2%	—

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

BE021O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 325 applicants for 244 licences, 75.1% drawn, no preference points needed
BE021O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 22 applicants for 13 licences, 59.1% drawn, no preference points needed
BE021O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 18 applicants for 13 licences, 72.2% drawn, no preference points needed
BE021O1M — Muzzleloader, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 12 applicants for 9 licences, 75% drawn, no preference points needed

No preference points were needed for the codes above in that year, which can change the moment applicant numbers do. There are 1 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

3 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit, including Rangely Camper Park.

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Road Conditions

CR 103, CR 201 and CO 64 are the named routes in the unit. Roughly 18 mi paved, 66 mi gravel and 0 mi four-wheel-drive.

🥾

Terrain Difficulty

5,277–8,543 ft, averaging 6,824. 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 79/46°F, 1.3 in.; Oct 64/33°F, 1.3 in.; Nov 47/21°F, 0.8 in..

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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

Rangely (16 mi), Dinosaur (29 mi), Mack (44 mi)

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 21?

Unit 21 lies in Rio Blanco and Garfield counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north by White River; on the east by Monument Gulch, Colo. 64, Monument Gulch Rd. and Rio Blanco CRs 103 & 26; on the south by Douglas Creek-Roan Creek divide, Douglas Creek-Salt Creeks divide, Evacuation Creek-Salt Creeks divide and Bitter Creek-West Salt Creek divide; on the west by UT. It covers about 887 square miles.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit 21?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 21 at 85% across all manners of take, and archery 57% and rifle 89% 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 21 hunt?

The nearest services our logistics pipeline finds for unit 21 are at Rangely, about 16 miles from the unit's centre, with Dinosaur at about 29 miles. There are also 3 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit.

What is the elk success rate in unit 21?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 21 at 19% across all manners of take, and archery 15%, muzzleloader 22% and rifle 21% 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 21?

CPW publishes no black bear success figure we can tie to unit 21 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.

Free Hunt Planning Tools

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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 Deer Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for mule deer in unit 21, 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 Elk Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for elk in unit 21, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22