Unit 217 (Northwest Flint Range)
Montana Hunting Guide — Elk
Unit 217 lies in Granite and Powell counties and covers about 142 square miles. Ground runs from 4,039 to 7,551 feet. Montana FWP publishes no per-unit elk success figure we can verify for this unit. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Build your own PDF hunt guide for Unit 217
Answer a few questions about your tag, your season and your rig, and the Field Intelligence Report builds a print-ready Montana Unit 217 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.
Free accounts get one report a year with the top spot unlocked. ProHunt Pro includes unlimited reports, all three spots, the full camp plan, and GPX/KML downloads for onX and Google Earth. Prefer to see one first? Open the builder and pick any unit.
Elk Hunting in Unit 217
Unit 217 lies in Granite and Powell counties and covers about 142 square miles. Ground runs from 4,039 to 7,551 feet. Montana FWP publishes no per-unit elk success figure we can verify for this unit. Check land status on a current map before you plan a route.
Where to Find Elk in Unit 217
Montana FWP draws an exact line around unit 217 and says nothing about where the elk stand inside it. The country below is verified; where to begin in it is our judgement, not the agency's. The unit lies in Granite and Powell counties. It runs to about 142 square miles.
The lines of the unit: Princeton Gulch and Gold Creek
Montana FWP draws unit 217 in Granite and Powell counties with a boundary that runs on Interstate 90 and State Route 1, and on Princeton Gulch and Gold Creek, walked corner by corner in its hunting district legal descriptions. 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 Princeton, Maywood Ridge and Jones Mountain
Named high points inside the unit include Mount Princeton at 7,908 feet, Maywood Ridge at 7,259 feet, Jones Mountain at 6,780 feet, Dunkleberg Ridge at 6,372 feet and Lone Tree Hill at 6,258 feet. Several carry a public-land flag in our data, which makes them the first places to try for a view. Elk on low, open country live on distance and visibility, so they see you first.
Holding ground: Horseshoe Basin, Coberly Gulch and Edwards Gulch
Below them sit Horseshoe Basin at 6,998 feet, Coberly Gulch at 4,039 feet and Edwards Gulch at 3,998 feet. That is the low country of the unit — the ground animals drop into when they are pushed or when the weather turns. Reaching the edge of one before light beats reaching its middle at noon.
Water in this unit
The water inside the unit line comes to 21 mapped stream reaches, 3 lakes and 26 stock tanks. Nothing in the data says which of them run in autumn, so a scouting trip earns its fuel.
Reading the land status
Our ownership read for this unit is approximate — it comes out as National Forest 60%, Private / Other 32% and State Trust 8%, so treat it as a starting point and check a current land-status layer before you plan a route. The unit runs from 4,039 feet to 7,551 feet, averaging 5,009 — enough relief to separate summer range from winter range.
Unit 217 terrain and land status
Measured from the unit boundary, not from the agency write-up
The lay of it
- 4,039–7,551 ft on a terrain sample , averaging 5,009 ft ; peaks can run higher.
- 142.2 sq mi inside the boundary.
Who owns the ground
- National Forest — 60%
- State Trust — 8%
- Private / Other — 32%
Roughly 68% is public. Carry a land-status layer anyway — these are area percentages, not a map of where the boundaries fall.
Water on the ground
- 26 tanks
- 21 stream segments
- 3 lakes
Counts from mapping data, so this is how many exist, not how many hold water in a dry year. Sitting water only pays where you find fresh tracks.
Named features inside the unit
Glass from: Mount Princeton (7,908 ft), Jones Mountain (6,780 ft), Dunkleberg Ridge (6,372 ft)
Holding ground: Horseshoe Basin (6,998 ft)
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 Elk in Unit 217
Elk Success Rates
Montana FWP's 2023 harvest estimates carry no elk row for unit 217 that we can read back to this unit on its own. Where the agency reports a unit inside a grouping, or prints a table our parser cannot resolve to a single column, we leave the number out rather than publish a statewide average as though it had been measured here. Montana FWP's current harvest estimates are the place to check before you apply.
Elk Draw Odds
Draw odds data not available for this specific unit/species combination in our database.
Search Montana Draw OddsMontana FWP's draw recap has no elk record we can tie to unit 217. That usually means the licence is sold over the counter, is issued under a hunt code covering several units, or was not offered in the years we hold. Rather than estimate a point requirement, we leave it blank — check Montana FWP's own draw recap for the hunt code you mean to apply for.
Unit Logistics & Expectations
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Colorado unit 217?
What is the elk success rate in unit 217?
Where do you stay and resupply for a unit 217 hunt?
Plan Your Hunt with ProHunt Pro
Unlock advanced tactics, the Tag-to-Trail Planner, AI hunt strategy assistant, and personalized camp and trip execution plans.
Upgrade to Pro — $49/yrSources & Verification
Every fact on this page is tied to a primary source below. Last fact-checked 2026-10-24.
- Montana FWP Hunting District Legal Descriptions, 2026/2027 — deer-elk hunting districts (pp. 19-35) — Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks · supports: GMU boundary description, Counties the unit lies in · accessed 2026-10-24
- FWP hunting district feature services — deer/elk, antelope, moose, bighorn sheep and mountain goat districts (2026 and 2027 seasons) — Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks · supports: Mapped extent of the unit, Which named ground falls inside the unit line · accessed 2026-10-24