Unit 711 (Wolf Creek / Upper Rio Grande)

Colorado Hunting Guide — Elk

Unit 711 lies in Dolores, Montezuma and San Miguel counties. CPW bounds it by Summit Canyon Creek and Dolores River among others. CPW's harvest estimates put elk success here as high as 19%. Federal land covers about 59% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

View Draw Odds Colorado Hunting Guide

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59%

Public Land

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 711

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 711 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 711

Where to Find Elk in Unit 711

What CPW publishes for unit 711 is a boundary, not a elk map. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Dolores, Montezuma and San Miguel counties.

The lines of the unit: Summit Canyon Creek, Dolores River and Disappointment Creek

CPW has unit 711 bounded on the north by Summit Canyon Creek, Dolores River and Disappointment Creek; on the east by USFS 526 (Dolores-Norwood Rd.); on the east and south by Colo. 145; on the south by Colo. 184; on the west by U.S. 491 and UT. 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: Belmear Mountain, South Mountain and Lone Mesa

Named high points inside the unit include Belmear Mountain at 9,622 feet, South Mountain at 9,475 feet, Lone Mesa at 9,215 feet, Glade Mountain at 9,167 feet and Elston Mountain at 9,135 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: Evans Draw, Fader Draw and Little Main Draw

Below them sit Evans Draw at 7,774 feet, Fader Draw at 7,750 feet, Little Main Draw at 7,608 feet, Rocky Draw at 7,592 feet and The Spud Patch at 7,463 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.

Public ground to start from: Disappointment Creek STL, Lone Dome SWA and Narraguinnep Resevoir SWA

CPW lists Disappointment Creek STL, Lone Dome SWA, Narraguinnep Resevoir SWA and South Mountain 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 59% of the unit on top of those.

Water: Snyder Spring, Wolf Den Spring and White Sands Spring

Named sources include Snyder Spring, Wolf Den Spring, White Sands Spring, Overall Spring, Fader Spring and Garbarero Spring. 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-24

CPW does not manage elk unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit E-24, and unit 711 is one piece of it. The rest of E-24 is unit 70, unit 71, unit 72 and unit 73. Read a neighbour in the same herd before you read the state average — the herd, not the unit line, is what the agency is steering.

Unit 711 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Lone Mesa (9,215 ft), Glade Mountain (9,167 ft), Thomas Mountain (8,718 ft), Glade Point (8,202 ft)

Holding ground: Long Park (8,316 ft), Near Draw (8,194 ft), McPhee Park (8,100 ft), Disappointment Creek STL, Lone Dome SWA

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 711

CPW's own harvest estimates put elk success in unit 711 at archery 19%, muzzleloader 18% 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 Hoppe Point, Trimble Point and Wild Horse Point

Take a position on one of Hoppe Point (8,028 ft), Trimble Point (7,907 ft), Wild Horse Point (7,801 ft) and Ormiston Point (7,644 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. A tripod is worth more here than another hour of walking. On the rut hunts, September bugling works where you can get above a drainage and let the thermals carry sound downhill.

Getting past the roads

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 711 sits inside E-24

Across E-24, CPW's 2023 elk success runs 25% in unit 70, 17% in unit 71, 14% in unit 72, 14% in unit 711 and 10% in unit 73. That puts unit 711 behind 2 of the 4 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit 70 carried the better number in the same herd — check its tag count before you read that as an easier hunt.

The way in: USFS 526, Colo. 145 and Colo. 184

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones CPW draws the boundary with: USFS 526, Colo. 145, Colo. 184 and U.S. 491. 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 Lone Mesa, Glade Mountain, Thomas Mountain and Glade Point as places to see from, and Long Park, Near Draw, McPhee Park and Disappointment 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

820 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 take14%

Archery19%

Muzzleloader18%

Rifle14%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 711 at 14% — 255 animals taken by 1,773 hunters. That is a lot of hunters in one unit, and the percentage is what it looks like after all of them have been through it.

Archery — 19% success, 41 taken by 211 hunters
Muzzleloader — 18% success, 15 taken by 84 hunters
Rifle — 14% success, 200 taken by 1,478 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
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (resident)	15	260	5.8%	6
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (nonresident)	2	43	4.7%	7
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (resident)	6	146	4.1%	5
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (nonresident)	2	18	11.1%	6
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (resident)	9	345	2.6%	7
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (nonresident)	3	89	3.4%	8

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

EF711O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Cow Only, resident: 345 applicants for 9 licences, 2.6% drawn, 7 preference points needed
EF711O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Cow Only, resident: 260 applicants for 15 licences, 5.8% drawn, 6 preference points needed
EF711O4R — Rifle, 4th Season, Cow Only, resident: 146 applicants for 6 licences, 4.1% drawn, 5 preference points needed
EF711O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Cow Only, nonresident: 89 applicants for 3 licences, 3.4% drawn, 8 preference points needed

Colorado runs a pure preference-point draw, so the point figure above is the requirement the agency published for that code in that year, not a forecast for the next one. There are 2 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 160 over Wolf Creek Pass is paved and handles large rigs. Trailers limited on FSR 380 and smaller spurs.

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Water

Excellent. Pass Creek, West Fork San Juan, East Fork San Juan all flow strong.

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Road Conditions

US 160 paved; FSR 380 and FSR 667 maintained gravel. Wilderness access is foot or horse only.

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Terrain Difficulty

Difficult. Elevations 8,500-13,000 feet with steep timber and alpine. Altitude demands.

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Hunting Pressure

Low thanks to quality management. Backcountry hunts see minimal other hunters.

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Weather

Wolf Creek gets the most snow in Colorado. Expect snow by mid-October, potential whiteouts later.

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Cell Service

Limited. Usable on the pass itself; drops in side drainages.

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Nearest Town

We hold no verified per-unit logistics for unit 711. The services named here belonged to a different part of Colorado, so the claim is gone rather than left to mislead a trip plan — work the access off CPW's boundary description above and a current motor-vehicle-use map.

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Permit Notes

Quality-managed limited unit. Mandatory harvest reporting within 48 hours of kill.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 711?

Unit 711 lies in Dolores, Montezuma and San Miguel counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north by Summit Canyon Creek, Dolores River and Disappointment Creek; on the east by USFS 526 (Dolores-Norwood Rd.); on the east and south by Colo. 145; on the south by Colo. 184; on the west by U.S. 491 and UT.

What is the elk success rate in unit 711?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 711 at 14% across all manners of take, and archery 19%, muzzleloader 18% and rifle 14% 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 711, 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