Colorado Elk Mule Deer Pronghorn Bear

Unit 75 (Vallecito)

Colorado Hunting Guide — Elk, Mule Deer, Pronghorn, Bear

Unit 75 sits in the southwest corner of Colorado, against the New Mexico line, in La Plata and San Juan Counties. It covers about 646 square miles of steep San Juan Mountains country, from low ground along the Animas and Los Pinos drainages up past 13,000 feet in the Needle Mountains. CPW publishes no per-unit elk breakdown here. What decides this hunt is access: big country, few roads, and a lot of vertical.

View Draw Odds Colorado Hunting Guide

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45%

Public Land

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 75

Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit 75 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 Mule Deer guide Pronghorn guide Bear guide

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Elk Hunting in Unit 75

Where to Find Elk in Unit 75: High Basins, Lower Shoulders and the Boundary Roads

CPW's unit material for 75 gives a boundary description and nothing more. It has no narrative on where the elk winter, calve or rut. We won't pretend otherwise. What follows comes from the boundary, the terrain and the elevations, so treat it as a map read and not a promise of animals.

The frame: Animas River to the Continental Divide

The unit is bounded on the west by the Animas River and on the south by New Mexico. Its northern and eastern edge follows a county line, the Continental Divide, and the Los Pinos River–Florida River divide. It then drops along La Plata CR 240 (the Pine River–Florida River Road), the Bayfield–Vallecito Road and the Los Pinos River. That's roughly 646 square miles in herd unit E-31. The rivers and roads on that line are how you get in. They aren't where we'd start looking for elk.

Needle Mountains and Grenadier Range: the high country

The interior is the highest ground in the unit. Windom Peak (13,979 ft), Sunlight Peak (13,965), Pigeon Peak (13,912), Vestal Peak (13,815) and Jones Mountain (13,812) all sit on public land, and the Needle Mountains top out at 14,008. Those summits are glassing landmarks, not places to hunt. Elk use the basins and benches below them, and the early-season ones are the ones to study on a topo. The gentler ground comes lower: Hazelton Mountain (12,476 ft), Peak Fourteen (12,550) and Lime Mesa (12,101). Overlook Point (12,993) is a cliff, so use it as a vantage and don't count on it for feed.

Lime Mesa and the lower shoulders

Lime Mesa is the one named landform in the unit that reads like a mesa. It's flatter and lower than the peaks around it, and it's in La Plata County on public ground. If you want to test a bench-and-timber pattern before committing to a long pack-in, start there. Later in the season, expect animals to slide down toward the unit's low edge, which runs from about 6,500 feet. We'd study the drainages feeding the Los Pinos and Animas for that move.

What to skip

Anything above roughly 13,000 feet. It's rock and snow, and nobody's going to find a herd there when the weather turns.
Ground right along the Bayfield–Vallecito Road and the lower Los Pinos. Check ownership before you plan around it, because unit-edge corridors tend to be mixed.
Long walks on a guess. With no agency map of where the elk are, scout first.

Unit 75 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Mount Eolus (14,016 ft), Windom Peak (13,979 ft), Vestal Peak (13,815 ft), Jones Mountain (13,812 ft)

Holding ground: Trimble Pass (12,877 ft), Cinnamon Pass (12,630 ft), Stony Pass (12,593 ft), Bayfield Lions Club Shooting Range SWA, Pastorius Reservoir 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 75: Glass the Shoulders, Hike In Early, Plan the Pack-Out

Without agency data on elk use, the plan is built on scouting. Treat the first day as reconnaissance and expect to be wrong once or twice before you find animals.

Glassing from the shoulders

Pick vantage points that look into basins rather than at them. Hazelton Mountain, Lime Mesa and Overlook Point are the lower named landforms that could serve, and each one gets you above feed and timber without a technical climb. Be on the glass before first light. Elk feed in the open at the edges of dark and tuck back into timber once the sun hits. Morning thermals pull up-canyon, so work your approach uphill from below and keep your scent out of the basin you're looking at. In the evening the air turns and falls, so flip your thinking.

Beating the crowd on the boundary roads

The roads that frame the unit, CR 240 and the Bayfield–Vallecito Road, will carry most of the traffic. Hunters coming up from Durango on the west side meet the unit along the Animas. Skip the first pullout and walk a mile or two farther than the road hunters do. In steep country that's usually enough. If you're after a quiet basin, plan to use the interior drainages and not the edge.

Weapon differences

We can't give you agency-backed weapon splits for this unit, because there aren't any in front of us. On our terrain read, archery and muzzleloader hunters get the most from the timber-and-bench country around Lime Mesa and the mid-elevation shoulders, where you can close inside a few hundred yards. Rifle hunters will want an open basin they can glass across and a plan for a long shot at an angle. Either way, plan your pack-out before you pull the trigger. A bull dropped at 11,500 feet in steep ground is a half-day of work, and more if the drainage is rough.

A realistic day

Up at 3:30, boots on the trail by 4:30, glassing by first light. Stay on the optics until mid-morning, then move to the next basin or bench while the elk bed down. Eat on the move and keep an eye on afternoon weather, because high San Juan ground builds storms early. Check the current CPW brochure for season dates, license type and any unit-specific rules before you go, since we haven't printed them here.

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%

Archery10%

Muzzleloader9%

Rifle15%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 75 at 14% — 207 animals taken by 1,469 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 — 10% success, 29 taken by 280 hunters
Muzzleloader — 9% success, 7 taken by 78 hunters
Rifle — 15% success, 172 taken by 1,111 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)	19	37	51.4%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	13	26	50.0%	—
Archery — 1st Season cow only (resident)	33	122	27.0%	—
Archery — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	8	83	9.6%	—
Archery — 1st Season bull only (resident)	143	386	37.0%	—
Archery — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	185	628	29.5%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (resident)	10	61	16.4%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	2	17	11.8%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season bull only (resident)	40	132	30.3%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	74	159	46.5%	—
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (resident)	20	242	8.3%	1
Rifle — 1st Season cow only (nonresident)	1	67	1.5%	4
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (resident)	33	249	13.3%	1
Rifle — 2nd Season cow only (nonresident)	9	70	12.9%	2
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (resident)	13	109	11.9%	—
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (nonresident)	5	10	50.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season bull only (resident)	162	430	37.7%	—
Rifle — 1st Season bull only (nonresident)	135	390	34.6%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (resident)	47	237	19.8%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (nonresident)	18	71	25.4%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (resident)	11	48	22.9%	—
Rifle — 4th Season bull only (nonresident)	9	21	42.9%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (resident)	23	252	9.1%	1
Rifle — 3rd Season cow only (nonresident)	6	63	9.5%	3
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (resident)	15	197	7.6%	2
Rifle — 4th Season cow only (nonresident)	2	25	8.0%	2

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

EM075O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Bull Only, nonresident: 628 applicants for 185 licences, 29.5% drawn, no preference points needed
EM075O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Bull Only, resident: 430 applicants for 162 licences, 37.7% drawn, no preference points needed
EM075O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Bull Only, nonresident: 390 applicants for 135 licences, 34.6% drawn, no preference points needed
EM075O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Bull Only, resident: 386 applicants for 143 licences, 37% drawn, no 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 22 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 75

Unit 75 lies in La Plata and San Juan counties. CPW bounds it by Hinsdale-San Juan Co. line and Continental Divide among others. CPW's harvest estimates put mule deer success here as high as 55%. Federal land covers about 45% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 75

What CPW publishes for unit 75 is a boundary, not a mule deer map. 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 La Plata and San Juan counties.

The lines of the unit: Hinsdale-San Juan Co. line, Continental Divide and Los Pinos River-Florida River divide

CPW has unit 75 bounded on the north and east by Hinsdale-San Juan Co. line, Continental Divide, Los Pinos River-Florida River divide, La Plata CR 240 (Pine River-Florida River Rd.), Bayfield-Vallecito Rd. and Los Pinos River; on the south by NM; on the west by Animas River. 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: Pigeon Peak, Vestal Peak and Grenadier Range

Named high points inside the unit include Pigeon Peak at 13,912 feet, Vestal Peak at 13,815 feet, Grenadier Range at 13,813 feet, Jones Mountain at 13,812 feet and Turret Peak at 13,796 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: New York Basin, Crystal Valley and Chicago Basin

Below them sit New York Basin at 11,335 feet, Crystal Valley at 11,310 feet, Chicago Basin at 11,272 feet, Horse Park at 11,126 feet and Upper Park at 10,974 feet. These are the folds worth watching, and the ones other hunters walk past on the way to somewhere steeper. Work out which of them you can see from one position before you pick a camp.

Public ground to start from: Bayfield Lions Club Shooting Range SWA and Pastorius Reservoir SWA

CPW lists Bayfield Lions Club Shooting Range SWA and Pastorius Reservoir 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 45% of the unit on top of those.

The herd this unit belongs to: D-30

CPW does not manage mule deer unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit D-30, and unit 75 is one piece of it. The rest of D-30 is unit 77, unit 78, unit 751 and unit 771. 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 75 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Mount Eolus (14,016 ft), Windom Peak (13,979 ft), Vestal Peak (13,815 ft), Jones Mountain (13,812 ft)

Holding ground: Trimble Pass (12,877 ft), Cinnamon Pass (12,630 ft), Stony Pass (12,593 ft), Bayfield Lions Club Shooting Range SWA, Pastorius Reservoir 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 Mule Deer in Unit 75

CPW's own harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 75 at archery 31% and rifle 55%. A number like that comes from few tags and a short season, not from easy hunting. The plan: glass the broken edges at first light, then sit still and keep glassing the same ground.

Glassing from Arrow Peak, Animas Mountain and Peak Thirteen

Take a position on one of Arrow Peak (13,746 ft), Animas Mountain (13,722 ft), Peak Thirteen (13,685 ft) and Peak Six (13,678 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. 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, late-season hunts put bucks with doe groups and moving in daylight.

Where unit 75 sits inside D-30

Across D-30, CPW's 2023 mule deer success runs 50% in unit 75, 47% in unit 751 and 40% in unit 77. Unit 75 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.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Mount Eolus, Windom Peak, Vestal Peak and Jones Mountain as places to see from, and Trimble Pass, Cinnamon Pass, Stony Pass and Bayfield Lions Club Shooting Range 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 a day here costs you

646 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

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 take50%

Archery31%

Rifle55%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 75 at 50% — 458 animals taken by 918 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 — 31% success, 32 taken by 102 hunters
Rifle — 55% success, 382 taken by 689 hunters

Mule Deer Draw Odds

Season	Tags	Applicants	Draw %	Pts Req
Archery — 1st Season either sex (resident)	172	357	48.2%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	61	194	31.4%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (resident)	11	61	18.0%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season doe only (nonresident)	6	19	31.6%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (resident)	75	188	39.9%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	160	258	62.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (resident)	40	219	18.3%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (nonresident)	3	20	15.0%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (resident)	40	229	17.5%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (nonresident)	10	20	50.0%	—
Rifle — 4th Season doe only (resident)	51	129	39.5%	—
Rifle — 4th Season doe only (nonresident)	5	14	35.7%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (resident)	13	51	25.5%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season doe only (nonresident)	1	3	33.3%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (resident)	6	57	10.5%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season doe only (nonresident)	0	3	0.0%	—
Rifle — 4th Season doe only (resident)	19	55	34.5%	—
Rifle — 4th Season doe only (nonresident)	3	6	50.0%	—
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (resident)	92	193	47.7%	—
Rifle — 5th Season doe only (nonresident)	0	4	0.0%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	198	592	33.4%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	232	459	50.5%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	252	750	33.6%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	94	461	20.4%	1
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (resident)	40	181	22.1%	2
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (nonresident)	14	143	9.8%	5
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (resident)	41	99	41.4%	—
Rifle — 2nd Season buck only (nonresident)	28	49	57.1%	—
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (resident)	30	155	19.4%	—
Rifle — 4th Season buck only (nonresident)	17	58	29.3%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (resident)	49	163	30.1%	—
Rifle — 3rd Season buck only (nonresident)	33	50	66.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (resident)	51	391	13.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season buck only (nonresident)	21	231	9.1%	1

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

DM075O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, resident: 750 applicants for 252 licences, 33.6% drawn, no preference points needed
DM075O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, resident: 592 applicants for 198 licences, 33.4% drawn, no preference points needed
DM075O3R — Rifle, 3rd Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 461 applicants for 94 licences, 20.4% drawn, 1 preference point needed
DM075O2R — Rifle, 2nd Season, Buck Only, nonresident: 459 applicants for 232 licences, 50.5% drawn, no 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 30 further code-and-residency combinations in the recap for this unit. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.

Pronghorn Hunting in Unit 75

Unit 75 lies in La Plata and San Juan counties. CPW bounds it by Hinsdale-San Juan Co. line and Continental Divide among others. CPW publishes no per-unit pronghorn success figure we can verify for this unit. Federal land covers about 45% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Pronghorn in Unit 75

CPW's material on unit 75 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its pronghorn live. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in La Plata and San Juan counties.

The lines of the unit: Hinsdale-San Juan Co. line, Continental Divide and Los Pinos River-Florida River divide

CPW has unit 75 bounded on the north and east by Hinsdale-San Juan Co. line, Continental Divide, Los Pinos River-Florida River divide, La Plata CR 240 (Pine River-Florida River Rd.), Bayfield-Vallecito Rd. and Los Pinos River; on the south by NM; on the west by Animas 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: Trinity Peaks, Niagara Peak and Arrow Peak

Named high points inside the unit include Trinity Peaks at 13,783 feet, Niagara Peak at 13,759 feet, Arrow Peak at 13,746 feet, Animas Mountain at 13,722 feet and Peak Thirteen at 13,685 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Pronghorn stay on the open rolling ground and leave the timber alone.

Holding ground: Sterling Gulch, Wallace Park and Missouri Gulch

Below them sit Sterling Gulch at 10,848 feet, Wallace Park at 10,692 feet, Missouri Gulch at 10,681 feet, Big Bear Park at 10,652 feet and Carbonate Basin at 10,636 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: Bayfield Lions Club Shooting Range SWA and Pastorius Reservoir SWA

Unit 75 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Mount Eolus (14,016 ft), Windom Peak (13,979 ft), Vestal Peak (13,815 ft), Jones Mountain (13,812 ft)

Holding ground: Trimble Pass (12,877 ft), Cinnamon Pass (12,630 ft), Stony Pass (12,593 ft), Bayfield Lions Club Shooting Range SWA, Pastorius Reservoir 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 Pronghorn in Unit 75

CPW publishes no pronghorn success figure for unit 75 that we can tie to this unit alone, so we won't quote one. The plan: spot from a vehicle or a rise at distance, then plan a stalk that uses the only cover there is — the curve of the ground.

Glassing from Monitor Peak, Peak Seven and Glacier Point

Take a position on one of Monitor Peak (13,657 ft), Peak Seven (13,656 ft), Glacier Point (13,633 ft) and Wood Mountain (13,597 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. Glass the edges first, then the shaded timber, then the edges again as the light goes. On the rut hunts, early-season bucks hold does and can be decoyed where the law allows it.

A first plan from the pins on this page

What a day here costs you

646 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. One good position held through the whole of first light beats three visited in a hurry.

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. We have no pronghorn success figure for this unit that survives checking against CPW's own harvest and hunter counts, and we would rather say so than print a statewide average as though it were measured here.

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.

Pronghorn: where to put the shot

Broadside, straight up the front leg, a third of the way into the body. Pronghorn are shallow-chested and the lungs sit forward.

Shots to refuse

Range it, then range it again. Open country makes 400 yards look like 250.
Wait for the buck to stop. Nobody kills a running pronghorn cleanly on purpose.
Mind the backdrop. A miss carries a long way across a flat.

Plan the carry: roughly 30– 45 lb of boned-out meat, before head and hide — one large cooler with ice already in it. ProHunt planning estimate, not an agency figure.

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Unlock pronghorn hunting tactics for Unit 75

Upgrade to Pro — $49/yr

Pronghorn Success Rates

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates carry no pronghorn row for unit 75 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.

Pronghorn Draw Odds

Draw odds data not available for this specific unit/species combination in our database.

Search Colorado Draw Odds

CPW's draw recap has no pronghorn record we can tie to unit 75. That usually means the licence is sold over the counter, is issued under a hunt code covering several units, or was not offered in the years we hold. Rather than estimate a point requirement, we leave it blank — check CPW's own draw recap for the hunt code you mean to apply for.

Bear Hunting in Unit 75

Unit 75 lies in La Plata and San Juan counties. CPW bounds it by Hinsdale-San Juan Co. line and Continental Divide among others. CPW publishes no per-unit black bear success figure we can verify for this unit. Federal land covers about 45% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

Where to Find Black Bear in Unit 75

CPW draws an exact line around unit 75 and says nothing about where the black bear 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 La Plata and San Juan counties.

The lines of the unit: Hinsdale-San Juan Co. line, Continental Divide and Los Pinos River-Florida River divide

CPW has unit 75 bounded on the north and east by Hinsdale-San Juan Co. line, Continental Divide, Los Pinos River-Florida River divide, La Plata CR 240 (Pine River-Florida River Rd.), Bayfield-Vallecito Rd. and Los Pinos River; on the south by NM; on the west by Animas River. Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. 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: Peak Six, Monitor Peak and Peak Seven

Named high points inside the unit include Peak Six at 13,678 feet, Monitor Peak at 13,657 feet, Peak Seven at 13,656 feet, Glacier Point at 13,633 feet and Wood Mountain at 13,597 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: Lower Park, Kroeger Park and Little Bear Park

Below them sit Lower Park at 10,564 feet, Kroeger Park at 10,461 feet, Little Bear Park at 10,404 feet, West Virginia Gulch at 10,401 feet and Edith Gulch at 10,297 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.

Public ground to start from: Bayfield Lions Club Shooting Range SWA and Pastorius Reservoir SWA

The herd this unit belongs to: B-18

CPW does not manage black bear unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit B-18, and unit 75 is one piece of it. The rest of B-18 is unit 77, unit 78, unit 751 and unit 771. 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 75 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Mount Eolus (14,016 ft), Windom Peak (13,979 ft), Vestal Peak (13,815 ft), Jones Mountain (13,812 ft)

Holding ground: Trimble Pass (12,877 ft), Cinnamon Pass (12,630 ft), Stony Pass (12,593 ft), Bayfield Lions Club Shooting Range SWA, Pastorius Reservoir 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 Black Bear in Unit 75

CPW publishes no black bear success figure for unit 75 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 Peak Fifteen, Peak One and Crown Mountain

Take a position on one of Peak Fifteen (13,591 ft), Peak One (13,575 ft), Crown Mountain (13,553 ft) and Peak Eleven (13,497 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, September hunts coincide with the feeding push before denning.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Mount Eolus, Windom Peak, Vestal Peak and Jones Mountain as places to see from, and Trimble Pass, Cinnamon Pass, Stony Pass and Bayfield Lions Club Shooting Range SWA 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 a day here costs you

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. We have no black bear success figure for this unit that survives checking against CPW's own harvest and hunter counts, and we would rather say so than print a statewide average as though it were measured here.

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.

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Bear Success Rates

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates carry no black bear row for unit 75 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)	78	114	68.4%	—
Archery — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	43	59	72.9%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (resident)	17	39	43.6%	—
Muzzleloader — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	14	29	48.3%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (resident)	468	674	69.4%	—
Rifle — 1st Season either sex (nonresident)	151	214	70.6%	—

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

BE075O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 674 applicants for 468 licences, 69.4% drawn, no preference points needed
BE075O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 214 applicants for 151 licences, 70.6% drawn, no preference points needed
BE075O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, resident: 114 applicants for 78 licences, 68.4% drawn, no preference points needed
BE075O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Either Sex, nonresident: 59 applicants for 43 licences, 72.9% 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 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

🚐

RV Sites

Developed campgrounds near Vallecito Reservoir with RV sites. Durango has full services.

⛺

Camp Sites

Dispersed camping on San Juan NF throughout. Developed campgrounds at Vallecito, Pine River, and along US 160.

🛻

Trailer Access

CR 501 to Vallecito is paved. Forest roads narrow. Short trailers only on spur roads.

💧

Water

Pine River, Piedra River, Vallecito Creek, Florida River. Abundant water. Always filter.

🛣️

Road Conditions

CR 501 and US 160 paved. Forest roads maintained through October. 4WD for spur roads.

🥾

Terrain Difficulty

Moderate to very strenuous. Elevation 6,500-13,000 feet. Ranges from accessible timber to extreme alpine.

👥

Hunting Pressure

Moderate near Vallecito and roads. Low in Weminuche Wilderness.

🌦️

Weather

Expect 10-45F during rifle season. Wolf Creek Pass area gets extreme snowfall. Prepare for winter conditions.

📱

Cell Service

Spotty near Vallecito and US 160. None in wilderness. Satellite communicator essential.

🏘️

Nearest Town

Durango

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit 75?

Unit 75 lies in La Plata and San Juan counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north and east by Hinsdale-San Juan Co. line, Continental Divide, Los Pinos River-Florida River divide, La Plata CR 240 (Pine River-Florida River Rd.), Bayfield-Vallecito Rd. and Los Pinos River; on the south by NM; on the west by Animas River.

What is the elk success rate in unit 75?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put elk success in unit 75 at 14% across all manners of take, and archery 10%, muzzleloader 9% and rifle 15% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

What is the mule deer success rate in unit 75?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put mule deer success in unit 75 at 50% across all manners of take, and archery 31% and rifle 55% by weapon. Those are the agency's own figures for this unit, not a statewide average.

What is the pronghorn success rate in unit 75?

CPW publishes no pronghorn success figure we can tie to unit 75 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.

What is the black bear success rate in unit 75?

CPW publishes no black bear success figure we can tie to unit 75 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.

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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 75, 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 Deer Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for mule deer in unit 75, Hunters and harvest by weapon and season · accessed 2026-10-22

Unit 75 (Vallecito)

Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 75

Elk Hunting in Unit 75

Where to Find Elk in Unit 75: High Basins, Lower Shoulders and the Boundary Roads

The frame: Animas River to the Continental Divide

Needle Mountains and Grenadier Range: the high country

Lime Mesa and the lower shoulders

What to skip

Unit 75 terrain and land status

Named features inside the unit

How to Hunt Elk in Unit 75: Glass the Shoulders, Hike In Early, Plan the Pack-Out

Elk Success Rates

Elk Draw Odds

Mule Deer Hunting in Unit 75

Where to Find Mule Deer in Unit 75

The lines of the unit: Hinsdale-San Juan Co. line, Continental Divide and Los Pinos River-Florida River divide

High ground inside the line: Pigeon Peak, Vestal Peak and Grenadier Range

Holding ground: New York Basin, Crystal Valley and Chicago Basin

Public ground to start from: Bayfield Lions Club Shooting Range SWA and Pastorius Reservoir SWA

The herd this unit belongs to: D-30

Unit 75 terrain and land status

Named features inside the unit

How to Hunt Mule Deer in Unit 75

Mule Deer Success Rates

Mule Deer Draw Odds

Pronghorn Hunting in Unit 75

Where to Find Pronghorn in Unit 75

The lines of the unit: Hinsdale-San Juan Co. line, Continental Divide and Los Pinos River-Florida River divide

High ground inside the line: Trinity Peaks, Niagara Peak and Arrow Peak

Holding ground: Sterling Gulch, Wallace Park and Missouri Gulch

Public ground to start from: Bayfield Lions Club Shooting Range SWA and Pastorius Reservoir SWA

Unit 75 terrain and land status

Named features inside the unit

How to Hunt Pronghorn in Unit 75

Pronghorn Success Rates

Pronghorn Draw Odds

Bear Hunting in Unit 75

Where to Find Black Bear in Unit 75

The lines of the unit: Hinsdale-San Juan Co. line, Continental Divide and Los Pinos River-Florida River divide

High ground inside the line: Peak Six, Monitor Peak and Peak Seven

Holding ground: Lower Park, Kroeger Park and Little Bear Park

Public ground to start from: Bayfield Lions Club Shooting Range SWA and Pastorius Reservoir SWA

The herd this unit belongs to: B-18

Unit 75 terrain and land status

Named features inside the unit

How to Hunt Black Bear in Unit 75

Bear Success Rates

Bear Draw Odds

Unit Logistics & Expectations

Explore Related Units

Unit 54 — Elk

Unit 501 — Elk

Unit 75 — Mule Deer

Unit 59 — Pronghorn

Frequently Asked Questions

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Sources & Verification