Colorado Mule Deer Elk Bear

Unit 34

Colorado Hunting Guide — Mule Deer, Elk, Bear

Unit 34 lies in Garfield and Eagle counties and covers about 193 square miles. Ground runs from 5,965 to 11,186 feet. CPW bounds it by Deep Creek and Colorado River among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 21%. Federal land covers about 93% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Colorado Hunting Guide

🏔️

93%

Public Land

⛰️

6,600–10,900 ft

Sampled elevation

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 34

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 34 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

Free accounts get one report a year with the top spot unlocked. ProHunt Pro includes unlimited reports, all three spots, the full camp plan, and GPX/KML downloads for onX and Google Earth. Prefer to see one first? Open the builder and pick any unit.

Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 34

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 34

CPW draws an exact line around unit 34 and says nothing about where the mule deer stand inside it. 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 Garfield and Eagle counties. It runs to about 193 square miles.

The lines of the unit: Deep Creek, Colorado River and Canyon Creek

CPW has unit 34 bounded on the north by Deep Creek; on the east and south by Colorado River; on the west by Canyon Creek. Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. 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: Baxter Peak, Quartzite Ridge and Tibbetts Ridge

Named high points inside the unit include Baxter Peak at 11,186 feet, Quartzite Ridge at 11,186 feet, Tibbetts Ridge at 11,061 feet, Flatiron Mountain at 10,806 feet and Windy Point at 10,230 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Mule deer bed on broken ground with a view and feed on the brush below it.

Holding ground: Dolan Gulch, Wagon Gulch and Blue Gulch

Below them sit Dolan Gulch at 6,040 feet, Wagon Gulch at 6,039 feet, Blue Gulch at 5,965 feet, Coyote Park at 10,643 feet and Elbow Park at 10,514 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Two you can watch from a single knob is worth more than five you have to drive between.

Water in this unit

The water inside the unit line comes to 2,625 mapped stream reaches, 27 lakes, 224 stock tanks and 2 springs. 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-43

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-43, and unit 34 is one piece of it. The rest of D-43 is unit 25 and unit 26. 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.

Reading the land status

Our ownership read for this unit is approximate — it comes out as National Forest 60%, Private / Other 17%, BLM 15% and State Trust 8%, 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 6,600 to 10,900 feet, and named ground inside the line runs 5,965 to 11,186 feet — take 5,965 to 11,186 as the spread, because the sample is a grid and misses both ends. With 5,221 feet between the two ends, that is a lot of vertical to cover, and it means the season you draw decides which half of the unit you hunt.

Unit 34 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

6,600–10,900 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 9,392 ft ; peaks can run higher. That spread means you can hunt two seasons in one day — plan clothing for both ends.
192.8 sq mi inside the boundary.

Who owns the ground

National Forest — 60%
BLM — 15%
State Trust — 8%
Private / Other — 17%

Roughly 83% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

224 tanks
2 springs
2,625 stream segments
27 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: Baxter Peak (11,186 ft), Tibbetts Ridge (11,061 ft), Flatiron Mountain (10,806 ft), Windy Point (10,230 ft)

Holding ground: Coyote Park (10,643 ft), Elbow Park (10,514 ft), Crane Park (10,388 ft)

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 34

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 34 at archery 9% and rifle 21%. That is an ordinary spread for this country, and it rewards whoever scouted. The plan: glass the broken edges at first light, then sit still and keep glassing the same ground.

Glassing from Baxter Peak, Quartzite Ridge and Tibbetts Ridge

Take a position on one of Baxter Peak (11,186 ft), Quartzite Ridge (11,186 ft), Tibbetts Ridge (11,061 ft) and Flatiron Mountain (10,806 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. A tripod is worth more here than another hour of walking. On the rut hunts, late-season hunts put bucks with doe groups and moving in daylight.

Water against feed

There are 2,625 mapped stream reaches and 224 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

Season normals here run Sep 79/48°F, Oct 65/36°F and Nov 49/26°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 2 in. in Sep, 1.9 in. in Oct and 1.5 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

Getting past the roads: I 70 and CR 17

I 70 is the paved frame, which is also where everyone else starts. FR 640.1 and FR 601.1 need clearance, and that is usually where the boot tracks thin out. There is little true four-wheel-drive road here, so distance from the gravel is the only thing separating you from the next hunter. One mapped public entry point falls inside the unit, so decide which one you take before the morning you take it.

Where unit 34 sits inside D-43

Across D-43, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 38% in unit 26, 32% in unit 25 and 21% in unit 34. Unit 34 is the lowest of them, so whatever drives success in this herd is happening somewhere else in it. If the draw lets you choose, unit 26 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

The map above marks Baxter Peak, Tibbetts Ridge, Flatiron Mountain and Windy Point as places to see from, and Coyote Park, Elbow Park, Crane Park and Glenwood Springs SFU 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 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 34

Named routes and what they need

I 70 — 9.5 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CR 17 — 6.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
FR 640.1 — 3.1 mi · High-clearance
FR 601.1 — 1.6 mi · High-clearance
CR 137 — 1.1 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

Glenwood Springs — 7.6 mi · fuel, groceries, lodging, gear
Dotsero — 11.9 mi · no services listed
Cattle Creek — 13.5 mi · no services listed
New Castle — 14.5 mi · fuel, groceries, lodging
Gypsum — 17.7 mi · fuel, groceries

Developed camps

Supply Basin Campground
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site

Season weather and signal

Jan36° / 14° · 1.5" precip
Aug86° / 56° · 1.4" precip
Sep79° / 48° · 2" precip
Oct65° / 36° · 1.9" precip
Nov49° / 26° · 1.5" precip
Dec36° / 15° · 1.4" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 9% 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.

Pro Members Only

Unlock mule deer tactics for Unit 34

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Mule Deer Success Rates

All manners of take21%

Archery9%

Rifle21%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 34 at 21% — 140 animals taken by 667 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 — 9% success, 6 taken by 62 hunters
Rifle — 21% success, 108 taken by 517 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 either sex (resident)	47	82	57.3%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	42	82	51.2%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season either sex (resident)	3	4	75.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season either sex (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season either sex (resident)	1	4	25.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season either sex (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (resident)	43	90	47.8%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (nonresident)	1	6	16.7%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (resident)	30	85	35.3%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (nonresident)	1	8	12.5%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	80	162	49.4%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	55	130	42.3%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	84	182	46.2%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	114	205	55.6%	—
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (resident)	26	82	31.7%	—
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (nonresident)	57	115	49.6%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (resident)	18	55	32.7%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	2	0.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (resident)	28	51	54.9%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	19	22	86.4%	—

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

DM034O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 205 applicants for 114 licences, 55.6% drawn, no preference points needed
DM034O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, resident: 182 applicants for 84 licences, 46.2% drawn, no preference points needed
DM034O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, resident: 162 applicants for 80 licences, 49.4% drawn, no preference points needed
DM034O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 130 applicants for 55 licences, 42.3% 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 14 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 34

Unit 34 lies in Garfield and Eagle counties and covers about 193 square miles. Ground runs from 5,965 to 11,186 feet. CPW bounds it by Deep Creek and Colorado River among others. CPW's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 14%. Federal land covers about 93% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Elk in Unit 34

CPW draws an exact line around unit 34 and says nothing about where the elk stand inside it. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Garfield and Eagle counties. It runs to about 193 square miles.

The lines of the unit: Deep Creek, Colorado River and Canyon Creek

CPW has unit 34 bounded on the north by Deep Creek; on the east and south by Colorado River; on the west by Canyon Creek. It tells you the shape of the unit and nothing about its inhabitants. 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: Willow Peak, Storm King Mountain and Burnt Tree Ridge

Named high points inside the unit include Willow Peak at 10,004 feet, Storm King Mountain at 8,775 feet, Burnt Tree Ridge at 7,765 feet, Baxter Peak at 11,186 feet and Quartzite Ridge at 11,186 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Elk want timber to bed in and open ground to feed on, within a short walk of each other.

Holding ground: Crane Park, Dry Gulch and Tie Gulch

Below them sit Crane Park at 10,388 feet, Dry Gulch at 7,967 feet, Tie Gulch at 6,121 feet, Dolan Gulch at 6,040 feet and Wagon Gulch at 6,039 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.

Water in this unit

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 34 is one piece of it. The rest of E-6 is unit 11, unit 12, unit 13, unit 23, unit 24, unit 25, unit 26 and unit 33 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.

Reading the land status

Unit 34 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

6,600–10,900 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 9,392 ft ; peaks can run higher. That spread means you can hunt two seasons in one day — plan clothing for both ends.
192.8 sq mi inside the boundary.

Who owns the ground

National Forest — 60%
BLM — 15%
State Trust — 8%
Private / Other — 17%

Roughly 83% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

224 tanks
2 springs
2,625 stream segments
27 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: Baxter Peak (11,186 ft), Tibbetts Ridge (11,061 ft), Flatiron Mountain (10,806 ft), Windy Point (10,230 ft)

Holding ground: Coyote Park (10,643 ft), Elbow Park (10,514 ft), Crane Park (10,388 ft)

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 34

CPW's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit 34 at archery 3%, muzzleloader 13% and rifle 14%. A number that low means most hunters here go home empty, and the ones who don't put the days in first. 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 Windy Point, Willow Peak and Storm King Mountain

Take a position on one of Windy Point (10,230 ft), Willow Peak (10,004 ft), Storm King Mountain (8,775 ft) and Burnt Tree Ridge (7,765 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, September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

Water against feed

There are 2,625 mapped stream reaches and 224 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. Sitting water works where you can see fresh tracks going in, and nowhere else.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Getting past the roads: I 70 and CR 17

Where unit 34 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. That puts unit 34 behind 9 of the 10 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 13 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 34

Named routes and what they need

I 70 — 9.5 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CR 17 — 6.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
FR 640.1 — 3.1 mi · High-clearance
FR 601.1 — 1.6 mi · High-clearance
CR 137 — 1.1 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

Glenwood Springs — 7.6 mi · fuel, groceries, lodging, gear
Dotsero — 11.9 mi · no services listed
Cattle Creek — 13.5 mi · no services listed
New Castle — 14.5 mi · fuel, groceries, lodging
Gypsum — 17.7 mi · fuel, groceries

Developed camps

Supply Basin Campground
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site

Season weather and signal

Jan36° / 14° · 1.5" precip
Aug86° / 56° · 1.4" precip
Sep79° / 48° · 2" precip
Oct65° / 36° · 1.9" precip
Nov49° / 26° · 1.5" precip
Dec36° / 15° · 1.4" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 9% 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.

Pro Members Only

Unlock Unit 34 elk tactics

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Elk Success Rates

All manners of take8%

Archery3%

Muzzleloader13%

Rifle14%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 34 at 8% — 81 animals taken by 952 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 — 3% success, 13 taken by 455 hunters
Muzzleloader — 13% success, 7 taken by 52 hunters
Rifle — 14% success, 60 taken by 445 hunters

Elk Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (resident)	34	72	47.2%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (nonresident)	9	21	42.9%	—
Rifle — 5th Season cow only (resident)	10	15	66.7%	—
Rifle — 5th Season cow only (nonresident)	0	6	0.0%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (resident)	8	24	33.3%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (nonresident)	5	8	62.5%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (resident)	23	44	52.3%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (nonresident)	7	8	87.5%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (resident)	7	15	46.7%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (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 elk in unit 34, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

EF034O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Cow Only, resident: 72 applicants for 34 licences, 47.2% drawn, no preference points needed
EF034O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Cow Only, resident: 44 applicants for 23 licences, 52.3% drawn, no preference points needed
EM034O4R — Rifle, 4th Season, Bull Only, resident: 24 applicants for 8 licences, 33.3% drawn, no preference points needed
EF034O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Cow Only, nonresident: 21 applicants for 9 licences, 42.9% 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 5 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 34

Unit 34 lies in Garfield and Eagle counties and covers about 193 square miles. Ground runs from 5,965 to 11,186 feet. CPW bounds it by Deep Creek and Colorado River among others. CPW publishes no per-unit black bear success figure we can verify for this unit. Federal land covers about 93% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Black Bear in Unit 34

CPW's material on unit 34 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its black bear live. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Garfield and Eagle counties. It runs to about 193 square miles.

The lines of the unit: Deep Creek, Colorado River and Canyon Creek

CPW has unit 34 bounded on the north by Deep Creek; on the east and south by Colorado River; on the west by Canyon Creek. 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: Tibbetts Ridge, Flatiron Mountain and Windy Point

Named high points inside the unit include Tibbetts Ridge at 11,061 feet, Flatiron Mountain at 10,806 feet, Windy Point at 10,230 feet, Willow Peak at 10,004 feet and Storm King Mountain at 8,775 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Bears follow food, which in early autumn means oakbrush, chokecherry and serviceberry on south slopes.

Holding ground: Blue Gulch, Coyote Park and Elbow Park

Below them sit Blue Gulch at 5,965 feet, Coyote Park at 10,643 feet, Elbow Park at 10,514 feet, Crane Park at 10,388 feet and Dry Gulch at 7,967 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.

Water in this unit

The herd this unit belongs to: B-10

CPW does not manage black bear unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit B-10, and unit 34 is one piece of it. The rest of B-10 is unit 12, unit 13, unit 23, unit 24, unit 25, unit 26, unit 33 and unit 131 and 1 more. 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.

Reading the land status

Unit 34 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

6,600–10,900 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 9,392 ft ; peaks can run higher. That spread means you can hunt two seasons in one day — plan clothing for both ends.
192.8 sq mi inside the boundary.

Who owns the ground

National Forest — 60%
BLM — 15%
State Trust — 8%
Private / Other — 17%

Roughly 83% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.

Water on the ground

224 tanks
2 springs
2,625 stream segments
27 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: Baxter Peak (11,186 ft), Tibbetts Ridge (11,061 ft), Flatiron Mountain (10,806 ft), Windy Point (10,230 ft)

Holding ground: Coyote Park (10,643 ft), Elbow Park (10,514 ft), Crane Park (10,388 ft)

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 34

CPW publishes no black bear success figure for unit 34 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 Baxter Peak, Quartzite Ridge and Tibbetts Ridge

Take a position on one of Baxter Peak (11,186 ft), Quartzite Ridge (11,186 ft), Tibbetts Ridge (11,061 ft) and Flatiron Mountain (10,806 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 hunts coincide with the feeding push before denning.

Water against feed

There are 2,625 mapped stream reaches and 224 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. Sitting water works where you can see fresh tracks going in, and nowhere else.

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Getting past the roads: I 70 and CR 17

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Baxter Peak, Tibbetts Ridge, Flatiron Mountain and Windy Point as places to see from, and Coyote Park, Elbow Park, Crane Park and Glenwood Springs SFU 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 a day here costs you

193 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 Glenwood Springs, about 8 miles out, which is an hour of your morning each way if you sleep there. With 4,300 feet between the lowest and highest ground, the walk back up out of a kill site is the part to plan first. Leave the truck earlier than you want to and you will hunt the best half-hour of the day.

Getting in and staying out: unit 34

Named routes and what they need

I 70 — 9.5 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CR 17 — 6.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
FR 640.1 — 3.1 mi · High-clearance
FR 601.1 — 1.6 mi · High-clearance
CR 137 — 1.1 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

Glenwood Springs — 7.6 mi · fuel, groceries, lodging, gear
Dotsero — 11.9 mi · no services listed
Cattle Creek — 13.5 mi · no services listed
New Castle — 14.5 mi · fuel, groceries, lodging
Gypsum — 17.7 mi · fuel, groceries

Developed camps

Supply Basin Campground
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site

Season weather and signal

Jan36° / 14° · 1.5" precip
Aug86° / 56° · 1.4" precip
Sep79° / 48° · 2" precip
Oct65° / 36° · 1.9" precip
Nov49° / 26° · 1.5" precip
Dec36° / 15° · 1.4" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 9% 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.

Pro Members Only

Unlock black bear hunting tactics for Unit 34

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Bear Success Rates

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates carry no black bear row for unit 34 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)	10	12	83.3%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	4	6	66.7%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (resident)	2	2	100.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (resident)	34	51	66.7%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	6	16	37.5%	—

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

BE034O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 51 applicants for 34 licences, 66.7% drawn, no preference points needed
BE034O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 16 applicants for 6 licences, 37.5% drawn, no preference points needed
BE034O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 12 applicants for 10 licences, 83.3% drawn, no preference points needed
BE034O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 6 applicants for 4 licences, 66.7% 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

63 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit, including Supply Basin Campground, Coffee pot springs campground and Deep Lake.

🛣️

Road Conditions

I 70, CR 17 and FR 640.1 are the named routes in the unit. Roughly 11 mi paved, 8 mi gravel and 0 mi four-wheel-drive.

🥾

Terrain Difficulty

6,600–10,900 ft, averaging 9,392. More than 4,000 feet of relief, so plan the pack-out before the shot.

👥

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 79/48°F, 2 in.; Oct 65/36°F, 1.9 in.; Nov 49/26°F, 1.5 in..

📱

Cell Service

Verizon 9%, AT&T 6%, T-Mobile 3% of the unit area — modelled coverage, not measured. Assume no signal off the paved road.

🏘️

Nearest Town

Glenwood Springs (8 mi), Dotsero (12 mi), Cattle Creek (14 mi)

Pro Members Only

Unlock logistics for Unit 34

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 34?

Unit 34 lies in Garfield and Eagle counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north by Deep Creek; on the east and south by Colorado River; on the west by Canyon Creek. It covers about 193 square miles.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit 34?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 34 at 21% across all manners of take, and archery 9% and rifle 21% 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 34 hunt?

The nearest services our logistics pipeline finds for unit 34 are at Glenwood Springs, about 8 miles from the unit's centre, with Dotsero at about 12 miles. There are also 63 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit.

What is the elk success rate in unit 34?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 34 at 8% across all manners of take, and archery 3%, muzzleloader 13% and rifle 14% 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 34?

CPW publishes no black bear success figure we can tie to unit 34 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

🎰 Colorado Draw Odds Unit-level tag success rates 📅 Application Timeline Deadlines for all 9 states 🦌 Rut Forecast Peak rut timing by species 💰 Hunt Cost Calculator Budget your entire hunt

Plan Your Hunt with ProHunt Pro

Unlock advanced tactics, the Tag-to-Trail Planner, AI hunt strategy assistant, and personalized camp and trip execution plans.

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

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 34, 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 34, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22