Colorado Bighorn Sheep

Unit S68 (Northern Sangre De Cristos)

Colorado Hunting Guide — Bighorn Sheep

Unit S68 lies in Chaffee, Fremont and Saguache counties. CPW bounds it by South Arkansas River and Arkansas River among others. CPW's harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success here as high as 100%. Federal land covers about 79% of it. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.

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79%

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 S68 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 S68

Where to Find Bighorn Sheep in Unit S68

CPW's material on unit S68 stops at the boundary — there is no agency account of where its bighorn sheep live. 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 Chaffee, Fremont and Saguache counties.

The lines of the unit: South Arkansas River, Arkansas River and Fremont CR 6

CPW has unit S68 bounded on the north by South Arkansas River and Arkansas River; on the east by Fremont CR 6, USFS 6 (Hayden Pass Rd.); on the south by Fremont Co. lines, USFS 970 (Hayden Pass Rd.) and Saguache CR LL 57; on the west by U.S. 285. 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: Bushnell Peak, Hunts Peak and Twin Sisters

Named high points inside the unit include Bushnell Peak at 13,072 feet, Hunts Peak at 13,025 feet, Twin Sisters at 12,979 feet, Red Mountain at 12,966 feet and Mount Otto at 12,833 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: Carr Gulch, Euclid Gulch and Sand Gulch

Below them sit Carr Gulch at 7,897 feet, Euclid Gulch at 7,887 feet, Sand Gulch at 7,248 feet, King Gulch at 7,225 feet and Loggie Gulch at 7,041 feet. Those are the basins, parks and bottoms this unit has, and they are what you glass into from above. Work out which of them you can see from one position before you pick a camp.

Public ground to start from: Rock Creek STL, Short Creek Baldy STL and Villa Grove STL

CPW lists Rock Creek STL, Short Creek Baldy STL and Villa Grove 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 79% of the unit on top of those.

Water: Oak Springs

Named sources include Oak Springs. Nothing in the data says which of them run in autumn, so a scouting trip earns its fuel.

The herd this unit belongs to: RBS-10

CPW does not manage bighorn sheep unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit RBS-10, and unit S68 is one piece of it. The rest of RBS-10 is unit S8, unit S9 and unit S65. 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 S68 terrain and land status

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

Named features inside the unit

Glass from: Bushnell Peak (13,072 ft), Hunts Peak (13,025 ft), Red Mountain (12,966 ft), Galena Peak (12,452 ft)

Holding ground: Spring Gulch (6,855 ft), Rouch Gulch (6,798 ft), Kerr Gulch (6,568 ft), Rock Creek STL, Short Creek Baldy STL

Every one of these was tested against the unit polygon before it went on the map. They are starting points, not agency recommendations.

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How to Hunt Bighorn Sheep in Unit S68

CPW's own harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success in unit S68 at 100% 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 Poncha Mountain, Hamilton Baldy and Round Hill

Take a position on one of Poncha Mountain (10,126 ft), Hamilton Baldy (9,483 ft), Round Hill (9,144 ft) and Hayden Baldy (9,003 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. 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 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 S68 sits inside RBS-10

Across RBS-10, CPW's 2023 bighorn sheep success runs 100% in unit S8, 100% in unit S65, 100% in unit S68 and 61% in unit S9. Nothing in the herd beat unit S68 on that measure and 2 units matched it, which on a hunt this small says more about tag numbers than about 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: Fremont CR 6, USFS 6 and USFS 970

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones CPW draws the boundary with: Fremont CR 6, USFS 6, USFS 970 and U.S. 285. 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. Pick the edge nearest the country you mean to hunt and work in from it on foot, rather than driving the perimeter looking for a way through.

A first plan from the pins on this page

The map above marks Bushnell Peak, Hunts Peak, Red Mountain and Galena Peak as places to see from, and Spring Gulch, Rouch Gulch, Kerr Gulch and Rock 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

203 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.

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 take100%

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success in unit S68 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
Rifle — 1st Season ram only (resident)	1	59	1.7%	3
Rifle — 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 S68, by hunt code, with resident and nonresident kept apart because the two draw from different licence pools:

SMS68O1R — Rifle, 1st Season, Ram Only, resident: 59 applicants for 1 licences, 1.7% 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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Road Conditions

Highway 50 runs through the unit; canyon interior requires foot travel

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Terrain Difficulty

Very difficult — sheer canyon walls and steep talus require technical fitness

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Hunting Pressure

Extremely low — very few tags issued

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Cell Service

Good along highway; poor in canyon bottoms

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Nearest Town

Salida, CO (approx. 20 miles)

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Colorado unit S68?

Unit S68 lies in Chaffee, Fremont and Saguache counties, and CPW has it bounded on the north by South Arkansas River and Arkansas River; on the east by Fremont CR 6, USFS 6 (Hayden Pass Rd.); on the south by Fremont Co. lines, USFS 970 (Hayden Pass Rd.) and Saguache CR LL 57; on the west by U.S. 285.

What is the bighorn sheep success rate in unit S68?

CPW's 2023 harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success in unit S68 at 100% 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 S68, 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