Unit 561 (Arkansas Headwaters / Collegiates South)

Colorado Hunting Guide — Elk

Unit 561 lies in Chaffee and Saguache counties. CPW bounds it by U.S. 50 and U.S. 285 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 25%. Federal land covers about 92% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Colorado Hunting Guide

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92%

Public Land

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 561

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 561 guide around your hunt: three ranked spots with morning, afternoon and evening plays, a day-by-day plan, topo maps with every pin numbered, a camp and access plan, the legal and retrieval rules for this unit, shot discipline, a meat-care and pack-out plan, and a pre-trip checklist. Every coordinate sits on land recorded as public.

Elk guide

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Elk Hunting in Unit 561

Where to Find Elk in Unit 561

What CPW publishes for unit 561 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 Chaffee and Saguache counties.

The lines of the unit: U.S. 50, U.S. 285 and Continental Divide

CPW has unit 561 bounded on the north by U.S. 50; on the east by U.S. 285; on the south by Arkansas River-Rio Grande drainage divide; on the west by Continental Divide. 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: Mount Ouray, Chipeta Mountain and Sheep Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include Mount Ouray at 13,971 feet, Chipeta Mountain at 13,463 feet, Sheep Mountain at 12,831 feet, Pahlone Peak at 12,636 feet and Peel Point at 12,123 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: Hunter Gulch, Camp Rock Gulch and Dry Lake Gulch

Below them sit Hunter Gulch at 8,469 feet, Camp Rock Gulch at 8,431 feet, Dry Lake Gulch at 8,123 feet, Devils Armchair at 11,911 feet and The Gate at 9,844 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: Little Cochetopa Creek STL and Poncha Pass STL

CPW lists Little Cochetopa Creek STL and Poncha Pass STL inside this unit as ground open to public hunting. Each property sets its own restrictions, and the agency's page for it is where they are written down. Federal land covers about 92% of the unit on top of those.

The herd this unit belongs to: E-17

CPW does not manage elk unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit E-17, and unit 561 is one piece of it. The rest of E-17 is unit 48, unit 56 and unit 481. 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 561 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Mount Ouray (13,971 ft), Chipeta Mountain (13,463 ft), Sheep Mountain (12,831 ft), Pahlone Peak (12,636 ft)

Holding ground: Devils Armchair (11,911 ft), Taylor Gulch (9,506 ft), Toll Road Gulch (9,466 ft), Little Cochetopa Creek STL, Poncha Pass STL

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

How to Hunt Elk in Unit 561

CPW's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit 561 at archery 15%, muzzleloader 25% and rifle 18%. 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 Chipeta Mountain, Sheep Mountain and Pahlone Peak

Take a position on one of Chipeta Mountain (13,463 ft), Sheep Mountain (12,831 ft), Pahlone Peak (12,636 ft) and Peel Point (12,123 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. Work the glass in strips and go back over ground you already covered — animals appear in country you looked at ten minutes ago. On the rut hunts, September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

Where unit 561 sits inside E-17

Across E-17, CPW's 2023 elk success runs 29% in unit 48, 22% in unit 481, 21% in unit 56 and 19% in unit 561. Unit 561 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 48 carried the better number in the same herd — check its tag count before you read that as an easier hunt.

The way in: U.S. 50 and U.S. 285

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones CPW draws the boundary with: U.S. 50 and U.S. 285. Those are its edges, not its interior — useful because they are where you leave the pavement, and useless for telling you what the inside is like. Park on the boundary and walk; a unit you can only enter from its rim rewards whoever is willing to leave the truck at the rim.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Mount Ouray, Chipeta Mountain, Sheep Mountain and Pahlone Peak as places to see from, and Devils Armchair, Taylor Gulch, Toll Road Gulch and Little Cochetopa Creek STL 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

128 square miles is more country than a week will cover, so pick one drainage and learn it rather than driving the unit. The ground is gentle enough that the pack-out is a distance problem rather than a climbing one. 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.

Colorado rules that decide your day

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

Legal shooting hours

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

Motorized retrieval

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

Tagging

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

Leaving meat

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

Where you may not shoot

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

Elk: where to put the shot

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

Shots to refuse

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

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

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

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Elk Success Rates

All manners of take19%

Archery15%

Muzzleloader25%

Rifle18%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 561 at 19% — 48 animals taken by 260 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 — 15% success, 10 taken by 68 hunters
Muzzleloader — 25% success, 9 taken by 37 hunters
Rifle — 18% success, 29 taken by 155 hunters

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

Elk Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	57	121	47.1%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	19	74	25.7%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (resident)	10	40	25.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	8	29	27.6%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season bull only (resident)	23	43	53.5%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	8	46	17.4%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (resident)	25	107	23.4%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (nonresident)	2	8	25.0%	1
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (resident)	25	69	36.2%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (nonresident)	1	3	33.3%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (resident)	10	38	26.3%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (nonresident)	4	4	100.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season bull only (resident)	21	84	25.0%	1
Rifle — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	6	44	13.6%	4
Rifle — 2nd Season bull only (resident)	27	87	31.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season bull only (nonresident)	1	12	8.3%	1
Rifle — 3rd Season bull only (resident)	27	83	32.5%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season bull only (nonresident)	1	9	11.1%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (resident)	15	49	30.6%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (nonresident)	3	4	75.0%	—

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

EE561O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 121 applicants for 57 licences, 47.1% drawn, no preference points needed
EF561O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Cow Only, resident: 107 applicants for 25 licences, 23.4% drawn, no preference points needed
EM561O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Bull Only, resident: 87 applicants for 27 licences, 31% drawn, no preference points needed
EM561O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Bull Only, resident: 84 applicants for 21 licences, 25% 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.

Unit Logistics & Expectations

Planning Notes

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Trailer Access

Yes — US 285, CO-306, and CR-162 are paved. Collegiate Peaks Campground and Cottonwood Lake Campground accommodate trailers.

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Water

Abundant. Chalk Creek, Cottonwood Creek, Arkansas River, dozens of alpine drainages.

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Road Conditions

Paved main highways; gravel FSR 212 and FSR 272 well-maintained. Wilderness access is foot only.

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Terrain Difficulty

Difficult. Elevations 7,500-14,000 feet with steep drainages and rocky timber.

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Hunting Pressure

Heavy on first rifle, moderate otherwise. Backcountry wilderness is always lighter.

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Weather

Snow possible by late September at elevation. Rifle seasons run 15-65F valley, 0-45F high.

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Cell Service

Good along US 285 and near Buena Vista/Salida. Drops in steep drainages.

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Nearest Town

Buena Vista (population ~2,800) and Salida (~5,800) for full services and outfitter shops.

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Permit Notes

Most Unit 561 tags are limited draw. Cow list-B tags sometimes hit leftover.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 561?

Unit 561 lies in Chaffee and Saguache counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north by U.S. 50; on the east by U.S. 285; on the south by Arkansas River-Rio Grande drainage divide; on the west by Continental Divide.

What is the elk success rate in unit 561?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 561 at 19% across all manners of take, and archery 15%, muzzleloader 25% and rifle 18% 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 Elk Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for elk in unit 561, 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