Colorado Bighorn Sheep

Unit S66 (Mount Elbert)

Colorado Hunting Guide — Bighorn Sheep

Unit S66 lies in Lake and Pitkin counties. CPW bounds it by North Fork Fryingpan River and Mormon Creek among others. CPW's harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success here as high as 80%. Federal land covers about 83% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

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83%

Public Land

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Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Colorado Unit S66 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.

Bighorn Sheep guide

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Bighorn Sheep Hunting in Unit S66

Where to Find Bighorn Sheep in Unit S66

CPW draws an exact line around unit S66 and says nothing about where the bighorn sheep 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 Lake and Pitkin counties.

The lines of the unit: North Fork Fryingpan River, Mormon Creek and Continental Divide

CPW has unit S66 bounded on the north by North Fork Fryingpan River, Mormon Creek and Continental Divide; on the east by U.S. 24; on the south by Colo. 82; on the west by Lost Man Creek, over ridg from Lost Man Creek to South Fork Fryingpan River and Fryingpan 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: Mount Elbert, Sawatch Range and Mount Massive

Named high points inside the unit include Mount Elbert at 14,415 feet, Sawatch Range at 14,409 feet, Mount Massive at 14,368 feet, Gannett Peak (not official) at 14,364 feet and French Mountain at 13,886 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Sheep need rock to escape into and will not stand far from it.

Holding ground: Shingle Mill Gulch, Hayden Gulch and Buffalo Park

Below them sit Shingle Mill Gulch at 10,138 feet, Hayden Gulch at 10,039 feet, Buffalo Park at 10,004 feet, Echo Canyon at 9,975 feet and Longs Gulch at 9,951 feet. Those are the basins, parks and bottoms this unit has, and they are what you glass into from above. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.

Public ground to start from: Box Creek STL, Coke Oven SWA and Crystal Lake STL

CPW lists Box Creek STL, Coke Oven SWA and Crystal Lake 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 83% of the unit on top of those.

The herd this unit belongs to: RBS-12

CPW does not manage bighorn sheep unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit RBS-12, and unit S66 is one piece of it. The rest of RBS-12 is unit S11 and unit S17. 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.

Unit S66 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Mount Elbert (14,415 ft), Mount Massive (14,368 ft), French Mountain (13,886 ft), Mount Oklahoma (13,833 ft)

Holding ground: Independence Pass (12,096 ft), Hagerman Pass (11,941 ft), Kearney Park (10,636 ft), Box Creek STL, Coke Oven 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 Bighorn Sheep in Unit S66

CPW's own harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success in unit S66 at 80% across all manners of take. A number like that comes from few tags and a short season, not from easy hunting. The plan: pick a glassing position across from the escape terrain and stay on it for hours, not minutes.

Glassing from Deer Mountain, Twining Peak and Mount Champion

Take a position on one of Deer Mountain (13,722 ft), Twining Peak (13,701 ft), Mount Champion (13,628 ft) and Mount Cosgriff (13,564 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. Give a basin forty minutes before you decide it is empty. On the rut hunts, late hunts put rams with ewe groups on the same rock.

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 S66 sits inside RBS-12

Across RBS-12, CPW's 2023 bighorn sheep success runs 80% in unit S66, 75% in unit S11 and 25% in unit S17. Unit S66 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. 24 and Colo. 82

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. 24 and Colo. 82. 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 Mount Elbert, Mount Massive, French Mountain and Mount Oklahoma as places to see from, and Independence Pass, Hagerman Pass, Kearney Park and Box 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. Take the pair you can reach on one road and treat the rest as a second trip.

What a day here costs you

277 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. Leave the truck earlier than you want to and you will hunt the best half-hour of the day.

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.

Bighorn Sheep: 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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Bighorn Sheep Success Rates

All manners of take80%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success in unit S66 at 80% — 8 animals taken by 10 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
Rifle — 1st Season ewe only (resident)	2	30	6.7%	3
Rifle — 1st Season ewe only (nonresident)	0	0	0.0%	—
Rifle — 1st Season ram only (resident)	4	422	0.9%	3
Rifle — 1st Season ram only (nonresident)	1	478	0.2%	3
Archery — 1st Season ram only (resident)	2	42	4.8%	3
Archery — 1st Season ram 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 bighorn sheep in unit S66, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

SMS66O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Ram Only, nonresident: 478 applicants for 1 licences, 0.2% drawn, 3 preference points needed
SMS66O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Ram Only, resident: 422 applicants for 4 licences, 0.9% drawn, 3 preference points needed
SMS66O1A — Archery, 1st Season, Ram Only, resident: 42 applicants for 2 licences, 4.8% drawn, 3 preference points needed
SFS66O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Ewe Only, resident: 30 applicants for 2 licences, 6.7% 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

Planning Notes

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Trailer Access

Yes — US 50 is paved through the unit and handles any rig. Most hunters stage in Canon City, Cotopaxi, or Salida.

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Water

Arkansas River runs the length of the unit. Side drainages mostly dry by September.

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Road Conditions

US 50 paved; BLM access roads north of the river range from maintained gravel to rough two-track. 4WD and high clearance for any side spur.

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Terrain Difficulty

Very difficult. Cliff bands, loose scree, and 1,500-2,500 foot elevation gains from river to rim. Sheep hunts here demand real fitness.

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Hunting Pressure

Low by tag count, but sightseers and rafters create noise on the river corridor. Side drainages are quiet.

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Weather

Hot early season (70-90F) dropping to 20-55F by late October. River corridor funnels wind through the canyon.

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Cell Service

Good along US 50; spotty once you drop into side drainages.

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Nearest Town

Canon City (population ~16,500) on the east end; Salida (~5,800) on the west. Both have full services.

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Permit Notes

Once-in-a-lifetime tag for residents after harvest. Know the legal ram definition (3/4 curl) before pulling the trigger.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit S66?

Unit S66 lies in Lake and Pitkin counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north by North Fork Fryingpan River, Mormon Creek and Continental Divide; on the east by U.S. 24; on the south by Colo. 82; on the west by Lost Man Creek, over ridg from Lost Man Creek to South Fork Fryingpan River and Fryingpan River.

What is the bighorn sheep success rate in unit S66?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success in unit S66 at 80% across all manners of take. 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 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, Data analysis unit (DAU) the unit belongs to · accessed 2026-10-22
2023 Colorado Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep Harvest Estimates — Colorado Parks and Wildlife · supports: Percent success for bighorn sheep in unit S66, 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