Unit 682

Colorado Hunting Guide — Elk

Unit 682 lies in Saguache County. CPW bounds it by U.S. 285 and Colo. 17 among others. CPW's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 65%. Federal land covers about 3% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

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Public Land

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 682

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 682 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 682

Where to Find Elk in Unit 682

CPW draws an exact line around unit 682 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 Saguache County.

The lines of the unit: U.S. 285 and Colo. 17

CPW has unit 682 bounded on the north by U.S. 285; on the east by Colo. 17; on the south by CR G; on the west by U.S. 285. That is a legal description, not a habitat map. 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: Rattlesnake Hill

Named high points inside the unit include Rattlesnake Hill at 7,883 feet. None carries a public-land flag we trust, so settle the ownership question before you plan to stand on one. Elk on low, open country live on distance and visibility, so they see you first.

Holding ground: Big Hollow Gulch, Schecker Gulch and De Tilla Gulch

Below them sit Big Hollow Gulch at 7,699 feet, Schecker Gulch at 7,689 feet and De Tilla Gulch at 7,626 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: Mishak Lakes STL, Russell Creek STL and Russell Lakes SWA

CPW lists Mishak Lakes STL, Russell Creek STL, Russell Lakes SWA, Saguache Creek STL and Werner Arroyo 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 3% of the unit on top of those.

Water: Woodard Well

Named sources include Woodard Well. Nothing in the data says which of them run in autumn, so a scouting trip earns its fuel.

The herd this unit belongs to: E-55

CPW does not manage elk unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit E-55, and unit 682 is one piece of it. The rest of E-55 is unit 791. 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 682 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Rattlesnake Hill (7,883 ft)

Holding ground: Big Hollow Gulch (7,699 ft), Schecker Gulch (7,689 ft), Mishak Lakes STL, Russell Creek STL, Russell Lakes SWA, Saguache Creek STL, Woodard Well

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

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How to Hunt Elk in Unit 682

CPW's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit 682 at archery 0% and rifle 65%. A number like that comes from few tags and a short season, not from easy hunting. 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 Rattlesnake Hill

Take a position on Rattlesnake Hill (7,883 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. 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 682 sits inside E-55

Across E-55, CPW's 2023 elk success runs 63% in unit 682 and 45% in unit 791. Unit 682 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.

The way in: U.S. 285 and Colo. 17

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. 285 and Colo. 17. 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. Check each of them on a current motor-vehicle-use map before you count on it, because a line on a boundary description is not a promise of public access.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Rattlesnake Hill as places to see from, and Big Hollow Gulch, Schecker Gulch, Mishak Lakes STL and Russell 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. 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

255 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 take63%

Archery0%

Rifle65%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 682 at 63% — 47 animals taken by 75 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 — 0% success, 0 taken by 3 hunters
Rifle — 65% success, 47 taken by 72 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
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (resident)	4	4	100.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st 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 682, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

EF682O1M — Muzzleloader, 1st Season, Cow Only, resident: 4 applicants for 4 licences, 100% 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. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Unit Logistics & Expectations

Planning Notes

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Water

Piedra River and its tributaries provide abundant water throughout the unit; filter all backcountry water.

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Road Conditions

USFS roads provide access to trailheads; beyond the trailhead, travel is on foot or horseback. Some roads require high-clearance vehicles.

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Terrain Difficulty

Difficult to very difficult — roadless San Juan Mountain terrain with significant elevation gain from trailheads to prime elk basins.

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Nearest Town

Pagosa Springs is the closest full-service town for Unit 682 hunters, roughly 25-40 miles from primary trailheads.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 682?

Unit 682 lies in Saguache County, and CPW has it bounded on the north by U.S. 285; on the east by Colo. 17; on the south by CR G; on the west by U.S. 285.

What is the elk success rate in unit 682?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 682 at 63% across all manners of take, and archery 0% and rifle 65% 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 682, 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