Unit S73 (Mount Zirkel)

CPW draws an exact line around unit S73 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 Jackson and Routt counties.

The lines of the unit: Mount Zirkel Wilderness boundary, USFS Trail 1125 and USFS 660

CPW has unit S73 bounded on the north by Mount Zirkel Wilderness boundary, USFS Trail 1125, USFS 660 and Big Creek Rd. (USFS 600); on the east by Jackson CRs 6W, 7, 12W, 18 and 5; on the south by Jackson CR 24 and Buffalo Pass Rd. (USFS 60); on the west by Mount Zirkel Wilderness Area boundary. Read it as a frame, not as a hint about animals. Those features are what you will check against the map all week, and the divides among them are the ones that matter.

High ground inside the line: Park Range, Mount Zirkel and Flattop Mountain

Named high points inside the unit include Park Range at 12,145 feet, Mount Zirkel at 12,145 feet, Flattop Mountain at 12,104 feet, Sawtooth Range at 12,022 feet and Big Agnes Mountain at 12,001 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: Encampment Meadows, Horse Thief Park and Dinner Park

Below them sit Encampment Meadows at 9,783 feet, Horse Thief Park at 9,736 feet, Dinner Park at 9,502 feet, Elk Park at 9,177 feet and Newcomb Park at 8,774 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Work out which of them you can see from one position before you pick a camp.

Public ground to start from: Delaney Butte Lakes SWA, East Delaney Butte Lake STL and Lake John SWA

CPW lists Delaney Butte Lakes SWA, East Delaney Butte Lake STL, Lake John SWA, Manville SWA and Red Canyon 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 37% of the unit on top of those.

The herd this unit belongs to: RBS-37

CPW does not manage bighorn sheep unit by unit. It manages them as data analysis unit RBS-37, and unit S73 is one piece of it. CPW puts no other unit in RBS-37, so this unit carries the herd on its own. 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.

CPW's own harvest estimates put bighorn sheep success in unit S73 at 86% 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 Bear Mountain, Red Elephant Mountain and Little Agnes Mountain

Take a position on one of Bear Mountain (11,595 ft), Red Elephant Mountain (11,559 ft), Little Agnes Mountain (11,474 ft) and Davis Peak (11,407 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. 3 mapped public entry points fall inside the unit, so decide which one you take before the morning you take it.

The way in: USFS 660, USFS 600 and Jackson CRs 6W

We have no road inventory for this unit, so the only routes we can name are the ones CPW draws the boundary with: USFS 660, USFS 600, Jackson CRs 6W, Jackson CR 24 and USFS 60. 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 Park Range, Flattop Mountain, Sawtooth Range and Lost Ranger Peak as places to see from, and Ute Pass, Wolverine Basin, Mica Basin and Delaney Butte Lakes 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

445 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.