Unit S35 (Greenhorns)
Colorado Hunting Guide — Bighorn Sheep
Colorado Sheep Unit S35 is a once-in-a-lifetime-class bighorn draw we target through CPW's preference-point system. Tags are strictly limited, point creep is severe, and we approach the application with the assumption this is a multi-decade point build for most residents and non-residents.
Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit S35
Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit S35 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.
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Bighorn Sheep Hunting in Unit S35
Colorado Sheep Unit S35 is a once-in-a-lifetime-class bighorn draw we target through CPW's preference-point system. Tags are strictly limited, point creep is severe, and we approach the application with the assumption this is a multi-decade point build for most residents and non-residents.
Where S35 is, and why you cannot hunt it: the Greenhorns, closed on low population
Start with the regulation, because it decides whether anything else here matters. CPW's Sheep & Goat brochure carries one line about this unit: S35 closed to hunting due to low population. No hunt code is issued for it in the current cycle, and CPW's GIS unit publishes no boundary polygon for S35 either, which is why the map on this page has nothing pinned to it. That gap is the agency's record, not a hole on our side.
What CPW still prints for the unit
The brochure keeps the unit and its frame on the page: S35 Greenhorns, in Pueblo, Huerfano and Custer counties, bounded on the north by Colo. 96, on the east by I-25, on the south by the Huerfano River, and on the south and west by Colo. 69. That box takes in the Greenhorn end of the Wet Mountains and the ground falling east off it toward the interstate. Read it as the extent of a herd the agency is watching, not as a hunt area with a season attached.
The one number left in the record
CPW's 2023 Rocky Mountain bighorn harvest estimates list S35 with one hunter, one ram and 100 percent success. One licence is not a season and one animal is not a trend. It is the last entry before the closure, and we show it because leaving it out would make the unit read as though it had never been hunted at all.
What we are not going to tell you
We have no named ridge, basin or water source to offer inside this unit, because without a published polygon there is nothing to test a place name against. Every other sheep page on this site names ground that was checked against the unit line first. Doing otherwise here — naming a peak in the Wet Mountains and calling it an S35 glassing point — would be a guess dressed as research, on a unit nobody can legally hunt. So the honest answer to where the sheep are in S35 is that CPW says there are too few of them to hunt, and the agency is the only party counting.
How to treat a closed unit: watch the brochure, apply elsewhere, read the reopening properly
Bighorn Sheep Success Rates
CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success in unit S35 at 100% — 1 animals taken by 1 hunters. On a sample that small the percentage moves several points with one animal, so read the hunter count beside it.
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.
Bighorn Sheep Draw Odds
| Season | Tags | Applicants | Draw % | Pts Req |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archery — 1st Season ram only (resident) | 1 | 24 | 4.2% | 3 |
| Archery — 1st Season ram only (nonresident) | 0 | 0 | 0.0% | — |
| Rifle — 1st Season ram only (resident) | 1 | 58 | 1.7% | 3 |
| Rifle — 1st Season ram only (nonresident) | 0 | 0 | 0.0% | — |
Data from 2025 draw results. Each row is one residency pool — read the label before the number.
Open in Draw Odds EngineCPW's 2025 draw recap for bighorn sheep in unit S35, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:
- SMS35O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Ram Only, resident: 58 applicants for 1 licences, 1.7% drawn, 3 preference points needed
- SMS35O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Ram Only, resident: 24 applicants for 1 licences, 4.2% drawn, 3 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. Figures checked against CPW's own statistics pages on 2026-06-09.
Unit Logistics & Expectations
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Colorado unit S35?
What is the bighorn sheep success rate in unit S35?
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Upgrade to Pro — $49/yrSources & Verification
Every fact on this page is tied to a primary source below. Last fact-checked 2026-10-23.
- Colorado Sheep & Goat Hunting Brochure — Game Management Unit (GMU) Descriptions (pp. 16-17) — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: GMU boundary description, Counties the unit lies in · accessed 2026-10-22
- 2023 Colorado Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for bighorn sheep in unit S35, 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