Unit G01 (Mt.. Shavano)

CPW's material on unit G01 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its mountain goat live. 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, Gunnison and Saguache counties.

The lines of the unit: USFS 839, USFS 1451 (Alpine Tunnel) and USFS 295

CPW has unit G01 bounded on the north by USFS 839, USFS 1451 (Alpine Tunnel), USFS 295, Pomery Gulch, Grizzly Mountain and Brown's Creek; on the east by U.S. 285; on the south by U.S. 50; on the west by Gunnison CR 76 (Quartz Creek Rd.) and USFS 765 (North Quartz Creek Rd.). 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: Mount Shavano, Tabeguache Peak and Mount Aetna

Named high points inside the unit include Mount Shavano at 14,191 feet, Tabeguache Peak at 14,083 feet, Mount Aetna at 13,710 feet, Carbonate Mountain at 13,646 feet and Taylor Mountain at 13,633 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Goats live above the trees on cliff and talus and come down only when weather makes them.

Holding ground: Original Monarch Pass, Brittle Silver Basin and Old Monarch Pass

Below them sit Original Monarch Pass at 11,530 feet, Brittle Silver Basin at 11,368 feet, Old Monarch Pass at 11,318 feet, Porphyry Park at 10,722 feet and Hunkydory Gulch at 10,702 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: Black Sage Pass STL, Daley Gulch STL and Droney Gulch SWA

CPW lists Black Sage Pass STL, Daley Gulch STL, Droney Gulch SWA, Quakey Mountain STL and Sand Creek Central 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 85% of the unit on top of those.

Water: East Side Wood Gulch Spring, Line Spring and Powertime Spring

Named sources include East Side Wood Gulch Spring, Line Spring and Powertime 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: MG-01

CPW does not manage mountain goat unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit MG-01, and unit G01 is one piece of it. The rest of MG-01 is unit G2, unit G3 and unit G14. 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.

CPW's own harvest estimates put mountain goat success in unit G01 at 43% across all manners of take. That is an ordinary spread for this country, and it rewards whoever scouted. The plan: glass from across the basin, judge the climb honestly, and decide whether a hit animal could be recovered.

Glassing from Pomeroy Mountain, Sewanee Peak and Van Wirt Mountain

Take a position on one of Pomeroy Mountain (13,144 ft), Sewanee Peak (13,102 ft), Van Wirt Mountain (12,970 ft) and Clover Mountain (12,945 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. Glass the edges first, then the shaded timber, then the edges again as the light goes. On the rut hunts, early hunts find goats higher and later hunts find them pushed down by snow.

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. 2 mapped public entry points fall inside the unit, so decide which one you take before the morning you take it.

Where unit G01 sits inside MG-01

Across MG-01, CPW's 2023 mountain goat success runs 100% in unit G2, 90% in unit G3 and 43% in unit G1. That puts unit G01 behind 2 of the 3 other units in the herd. If the draw lets you choose, unit G2 carried the better number in the same herd — check its tag count before you read that as an easier hunt.

The way in: USFS 839, USFS 1451 and USFS 295

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones CPW draws the boundary with: USFS 839, USFS 1451, USFS 295, U.S. 285 and U.S. 50. 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 Tabeguache Peak, Mount Aetna, Carbonate Mountain and Monumental Peak as places to see from, and Hancock Pass, Hoffman Park, Original Monarch Pass and Black Sage Pass 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

328 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.