Colorado Mule Deer Elk

Unit 444

Colorado Hunting Guide — Mule Deer, Elk

Unit 444 lies in Eagle, Garfield and Pitkin counties and covers about 370 square miles. Ground runs from 5,770 to 12,801 feet. CPW bounds it by Colorado River and Cottonwood Creek among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 47%. Federal land covers about 66% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Colorado Hunting Guide

🏔️

66%

Public Land

⛰️

7,139–11,564 ft

Sampled elevation

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 444

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 444 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

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 444

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 444

CPW's material on unit 444 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its mule deer 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 Eagle, Garfield and Pitkin counties. It runs to about 370 square miles.

The lines of the unit: Colorado River, Cottonwood Creek and Eagle CR 10A (Cottonwood Pass Rd.)

CPW has unit 444 bounded on the north by Colorado River, Cottonwood Creek, Eagle CR 10A (Cottonwood Pass Rd.), USFS 514 (Red Table Mountain Rd.) and Fryingpan-Eagle River divide; on the east by divide between Lime Creek and North Fork of Fryingpan River and its tributaries and Cross Creek-Homestake Creek drainages; on the south by Ivanhoe Creek and Fryingpan River; on the west by Roaring Fork River. 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: Avalanche Peak, Sellar Peak and Red Table Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include Avalanche Peak at 12,801 feet, Sellar Peak at 12,062 feet, Red Table Mountain at 12,042 feet, Mount Thomas at 11,958 feet and Burnt Mountain at 11,175 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: Sellar Park, Taylor Creek Pass and Crooked Creek Park

Below them sit Sellar Park at 9,625 feet, Taylor Creek Pass at 9,547 feet, Crooked Creek Park at 9,508 feet, Lime Park at 9,317 feet and High Park at 9,277 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.

Public ground to start from: Basalt SWA, Basalt SWA - Schuck Unit and Bob Terrell SWA

CPW lists Basalt SWA, Basalt SWA - Schuck Unit, Bob Terrell SWA and Coke Oven SWA 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 66% of the unit on top of those.

Water: Crystal Spring

The water inside the unit line comes to 6,006 mapped stream reaches, 48 lakes and 456 stock tanks. Named sources include Crystal Spring. 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-53

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-53, and unit 444 is one piece of it. CPW puts no other unit in D-53, so this unit carries the herd on its own. So the objective behind your tag was written for that whole area, and a neighbouring unit in the same herd is a fairer comparison than the statewide figure.

Unit 444 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

7,139–11,564 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 8,720 ft ; peaks can run higher. That spread means you can hunt two seasons in one day — plan clothing for both ends.
370 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

456 tanks
6,006 stream segments
48 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: Avalanche Peak (12,801 ft), Sellar Peak (12,062 ft), Red Table Mountain (12,042 ft), Burnt Mountain (11,175 ft)

Holding ground: Hagerman Pass (11,941 ft), Tellurium Park (10,585 ft), Coffeepot Park (10,559 ft), Basalt SWA, Basalt SWA - Schuck 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 444

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 444 at archery 47% and rifle 42%. 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 Crowley Point, Spruce Ridge and Buck Point

Take a position on one of Crowley Point (9,029 ft), Spruce Ridge (8,891 ft), Buck Point (8,854 ft) and Gyp Hill (8,802 ft) and be on it before light. Cold air slides downhill in the dark, so keep your scent out of the bowl you mean to watch; expect the thermals to turn uphill an hour after the sun reaches the slope. Give a basin forty minutes before you decide it is empty. On the rut hunts, late-season hunts put bucks with doe groups and moving in daylight.

Water against feed

There are 6,006 mapped stream reaches and 456 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 73/43°F, Oct 60/32°F and Nov 45/22°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 1.8 in. in Sep, 1.8 in. in Oct and 1.6 in. in Nov, and the graded gravel in this unit turns greasy wet.

Getting past the roads: CR 4 and Taylor Creek

I 70 is the paved frame, which is also where everyone else starts. FR 416.1 needs 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. 2 mapped public entry points fall inside the unit, so decide which one you take before the morning you take it.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Avalanche Peak, Sellar Peak, Red Table Mountain and Burnt Mountain as places to see from, and Hagerman Pass, Tellurium Park, Coffeepot Park and Basalt SWA as ground to watch. Each pin is a named feature verified to fall inside the unit line, not a spot anyone has hunted. Join two of them into a morning: be on the first before light, move to the second once the thermals turn.

What a day here costs you

370 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 Basalt, about 7 miles out, which is an hour of your morning each way if you sleep there. With 4,425 feet between the lowest and highest ground, the walk back up out of a kill site is the part to plan first. Decide the night before where you will be at first light, and go there in the dark.

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 444

Named routes and what they need

CR 4 — 8.8 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
Taylor Creek — 7.6 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
8350 — 6.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
I 70 — 6.2 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CR 104 — 5.4 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
FR 416.1 — 5 mi · High-clearance

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

Basalt — 7 mi · groceries
El Jebel — 8.4 mi · fuel, groceries
Woody Creek — 12.1 mi · no services listed
Gypsum — 14 mi · fuel, groceries
Carbondale — 14.5 mi · fuel, groceries, gear

Developed camps

Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site

Season weather and signal

Jan34° / 11° · 1.5" precip
Aug80° / 51° · 1.6" precip
Sep73° / 43° · 1.8" precip
Oct60° / 32° · 1.8" precip
Nov45° / 22° · 1.6" precip
Dec34° / 12° · 1.4" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 15% 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 take42%

Archery47%

Rifle42%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 444 at 42% — 288 animals taken by 679 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 — 47% success, 53 taken by 113 hunters
Rifle — 42% success, 213 taken by 502 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)	62	144	43.1%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	20	63	31.7%	1
Rifle — 2nd Season either sex (resident)	21	40	52.5%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season either sex (nonresident)	4	5	80.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season either sex (resident)	22	45	48.9%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season either sex (nonresident)	9	12	75.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (resident)	8	150	5.3%	1
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (nonresident)	0	22	0.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (resident)	5	104	4.8%	1
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (nonresident)	0	11	0.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	124	284	43.7%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	52	184	28.3%	1
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	44	268	16.4%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	15	135	11.1%	2
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (resident)	16	108	14.8%	2
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (nonresident)	5	93	5.4%	6
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (resident)	5	42	11.9%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	0	8	0.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (resident)	28	59	47.5%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	17	76	22.4%	—

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

DM444O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, resident: 284 applicants for 124 licences, 43.7% drawn, no preference points needed
DM444O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, resident: 268 applicants for 44 licences, 16.4% drawn, no preference points needed
DM444O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 184 applicants for 52 licences, 28.3% drawn, 1 preference point needed
DF444O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Doe Only, resident: 150 applicants for 8 licences, 5.3% drawn, 1 preference point needed

Colorado runs a pure preference-point draw, so the point figure above is the requirement the agency published for that code in that year, not a forecast for the next one. There are 16 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 444

Unit 444 lies in Eagle, Garfield and Pitkin counties and covers about 370 square miles. Ground runs from 5,770 to 12,801 feet. CPW bounds it by Colorado River and Cottonwood Creek among others. CPW's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 23%. Federal land covers about 66% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Elk in Unit 444

What CPW publishes for unit 444 is a boundary, not a elk map. 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 Eagle, Garfield and Pitkin counties. It runs to about 370 square miles.

The lines of the unit: Colorado River, Cottonwood Creek and Eagle CR 10A (Cottonwood Pass Rd.)

CPW has unit 444 bounded on the north by Colorado River, Cottonwood Creek, Eagle CR 10A (Cottonwood Pass Rd.), USFS 514 (Red Table Mountain Rd.) and Fryingpan-Eagle River divide; on the east by divide between Lime Creek and North Fork of Fryingpan River and its tributaries and Cross Creek-Homestake Creek drainages; on the south by Ivanhoe Creek and Fryingpan River; on the west by Roaring Fork River. That is a legal description, not a habitat map. 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: Basalt Mountain, Red Hill and Cottonwood Divide

Named high points inside the unit include Basalt Mountain at 10,875 feet, Red Hill at 9,126 feet, Cottonwood Divide at 9,071 feet, Crowley Point at 9,029 feet and Spruce Ridge at 8,891 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: Montgomery Flats, Corral Gulch and Dock Flats

Below them sit Montgomery Flats at 9,242 feet, Corral Gulch at 9,242 feet, Dock Flats at 9,100 feet, Slim Jim Gulch at 9,089 feet and Cottonwood Pass at 8,282 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Work out which of them you can see from one position before you pick a camp.

Public ground to start from: Basalt SWA, Basalt SWA - Schuck Unit and Bob Terrell SWA

Water: Crystal Spring

The herd this unit belongs to: E-16

CPW does not manage elk unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit E-16, and unit 444 is one piece of it. The rest of E-16 is unit 44, unit 45 and unit 47. So the objective behind your tag was written for that whole area, and a neighbouring unit in the same herd is a fairer comparison than the statewide figure.

Unit 444 terrain and land status

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

The lay of it

7,139–11,564 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 8,720 ft ; peaks can run higher. That spread means you can hunt two seasons in one day — plan clothing for both ends.
370 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

456 tanks
6,006 stream segments
48 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: Avalanche Peak (12,801 ft), Sellar Peak (12,062 ft), Red Table Mountain (12,042 ft), Burnt Mountain (11,175 ft)

Holding ground: Hagerman Pass (11,941 ft), Tellurium Park (10,585 ft), Coffeepot Park (10,559 ft), Basalt SWA, Basalt SWA - Schuck 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 444

CPW's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit 444 at archery 8%, muzzleloader 23% and rifle 20%. 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 Lookout Mountain, Gobbler Knob and Seven Castles

Take a position on one of Lookout Mountain (8,640 ft), Gobbler Knob (8,307 ft), Seven Castles (7,932 ft) and Red Hill (7,008 ft) and be on it before light. In the dark the air runs downhill. Pick an approach that doesn't send it into the country you want to see, and plan to move once the slope warms. Give a basin forty minutes before you decide it is empty. On the rut hunts, September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

Water against feed

Timing the season: Sep, Oct, Nov

Getting past the roads: CR 4 and Taylor Creek

Where unit 444 sits inside E-16

Across E-16, CPW's 2023 elk success runs 17% in unit 47, 17% in unit 444, 15% in unit 45 and 14% in unit 44. Nothing in the herd beat unit 444 on that measure and one unit matched it, which on a hunt this small says more about tag numbers than about 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 Avalanche Peak, Sellar Peak, Red Table Mountain and Burnt Mountain as places to see from, and Hagerman Pass, Tellurium Park, Coffeepot Park and Basalt SWA 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 444

Named routes and what they need

CR 4 — 8.8 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
Taylor Creek — 7.6 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
8350 — 6.2 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
I 70 — 6.2 mi · Paved (all rigs)
CR 104 — 5.4 mi · Graded gravel (2WD / small trailer)
FR 416.1 — 5 mi · High-clearance

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

Basalt — 7 mi · groceries
El Jebel — 8.4 mi · fuel, groceries
Woody Creek — 12.1 mi · no services listed
Gypsum — 14 mi · fuel, groceries
Carbondale — 14.5 mi · fuel, groceries, gear

Developed camps

Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site
Unnamed camp site

Season weather and signal

Jan34° / 11° · 1.5" precip
Aug80° / 51° · 1.6" precip
Sep73° / 43° · 1.8" precip
Oct60° / 32° · 1.8" precip
Nov45° / 22° · 1.6" precip
Dec34° / 12° · 1.4" precip

Best signal is Verizon at about 15% 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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Elk Success Rates

All manners of take17%

Archery8%

Muzzleloader23%

Rifle20%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 444 at 17% — 168 animals taken by 992 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 — 8% success, 24 taken by 289 hunters
Muzzleloader — 23% success, 17 taken by 73 hunters
Rifle — 20% success, 127 taken by 629 hunters

Elk Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (resident)	32	64	50.0%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (nonresident)	20	34	58.8%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (resident)	117	196	59.7%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (nonresident)	28	40	70.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (resident)	49	126	38.9%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (nonresident)	6	15	40.0%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (resident)	19	73	26.0%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (nonresident)	4	7	57.1%	—
Rifle — 5th Season cow only (resident)	85	144	59.0%	—
Rifle — 5th Season cow only (nonresident)	6	9	66.7%	—

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

EF444O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Cow Only, resident: 196 applicants for 117 licences, 59.7% drawn, no preference points needed
EF444P5R — Rifle, 5th Season, Cow Only, resident: 144 applicants for 85 licences, 59% drawn, no preference points needed
EF444O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Cow Only, resident: 126 applicants for 49 licences, 38.9% drawn, no preference points needed
EF444O4R — Rifle, 4th Season, Cow Only, resident: 73 applicants for 19 licences, 26% 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 6 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

14 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit, including Town of Carbondale Campground, Glenwood Canyon Resort and Chapman Campground.

🛣️

Road Conditions

CR 4, Taylor Creek and 8350 are the named routes in the unit. Roughly 27 mi paved, 21 mi gravel and 0 mi four-wheel-drive.

🥾

Terrain Difficulty

7,139–11,564 ft, averaging 8,720. 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 73/43°F, 1.8 in.; Oct 60/32°F, 1.8 in.; Nov 45/22°F, 1.6 in..

📱

Cell Service

Verizon 15%, AT&T 10%, T-Mobile 5% of the unit area — modelled coverage, not measured. Assume no signal off the paved road.

🏘️

Nearest Town

Basalt (7 mi), El Jebel (8 mi), Woody Creek (12 mi)

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 444?

Unit 444 lies in Eagle, Garfield and Pitkin counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north by Colorado River, Cottonwood Creek, Eagle CR 10A (Cottonwood Pass Rd.), USFS 514 (Red Table Mountain Rd.) and Fryingpan-Eagle River divide; on the east by divide between Lime Creek and North Fork of Fryingpan River and its tributaries and Cross Creek-Homestake Creek drainages; on the south by Ivanhoe Creek and Fryingpan River; on the west by Roaring Fork River. It covers about 370 square miles.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit 444?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 444 at 42% across all manners of take, and archery 47% and rifle 42% 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 444 hunt?

The nearest services our logistics pipeline finds for unit 444 are at Basalt, about 7 miles from the unit's centre, with El Jebel at about 8 miles. There are also 14 developed campgrounds in or beside the unit.

What is the elk success rate in unit 444?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 444 at 17% across all manners of take, and archery 8%, muzzleloader 23% and rifle 20% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

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Sources & Verification

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

Colorado Big Game Hunting Brochure — Game Management Unit (GMU) Descriptions (pp. 79-80-81-82) — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: GMU boundary description, Counties the unit lies in, Data analysis unit (DAU) the unit belongs to · accessed 2026-10-22
2023 Colorado Deer Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for mule deer in unit 444, 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 444, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22