Unit 212 (Lone Mountain, the Weepah Hills and Paymaster Canyon)

Lone Mountain, starting on the northwest side

Lone Mountain is the primary bighorn habitat in Unit 212. NDOW says good forage and well-spread water let sheep use the whole mountain, so there's no single spot to camp on. The sheet suggests starting in the northwestern portion of the mountain. From there you can also reach the north slope, which gives you two faces to glass from one starting area.

Lone Mountain differs from most desert bighorn ranges in one important way: it's heavily treed. Rams often use open pinyon-juniper stands, and NDOW says patience and intense glassing are what make a hunt succeed here.

The Weepah Hills and Paymaster Canyon as fall turns late

The picture shifts as the season wears on. When late-fall weather arrives, more sheep, rams in particular, move into the Weepah Hills and the Paymaster Canyon country south of Lone Mountain. The hunt opens near the end of November and runs to New Year's Day, so it makes sense to give that southern country more of your time as the weeks go by. The sheet doesn't say how far south they travel, so keep the unit boundary in mind if you follow them.

The ground NDOW draws for this tag

A bighorn sheep tag for this group is good in unit 212, about 1,917 square miles measured on NDOW's own boundary, in Esmeralda County. The named ranges inside the line are Gold Mountain Range, Weepah Hills, Clayton Ridge, Cuprite Hills, General Thomas Hills and Montezuma Range. The highest named points are Harvey Peak (9,274 ft), Lone Mountain (9,091 ft) and Magruder Mountain (9,041 ft), and the lowest named ground sits near 4,142 feet. We don't print a land-status split for Nevada groups, because the figures we held didn't come from BLM's surface-management data; check BLM's current map for private parcels before you cross a fence or a cattle guard. GNIS names 47 springs inside it, Stockade Spring, Indian Spring, Kline Spring and Walker Spring among them.

Alpine and Jacks canyons on the west side

Access to Lone Mountain exists around its entire perimeter, so you can reach it from any direction. NDOW says the best access is from the Alpine or Jacks Canyon areas on the west side of the mountain. Those approaches fit the sheet's advice to start in the northwestern portion of Lone Mountain and work onto the north slope from there.

Millers Rest Area and the southern hills

For the country south of the mountain, many roads lead into the Weepah Hills, Paymaster, and the Mikes Well and Springdale Canyon areas, reached by way of the Millers Rest Area on US Highway 95. If late-fall weather has pushed rams south, this is how you follow them.

Glassing in timber

Plan for slow, careful glassing. Because Lone Mountain carries far more trees than most desert sheep ranges, rams can be bedded or feeding in open pinyon-juniper stands where a quick scan misses them. Sit longer, glass the same stands more than once, and give the mountain the patience NDOW says it takes.

Supplies come from a distance. Full services are only in Tonopah, with limited services in Dyer and Goldfield, so carry the fuel and water you'll need.

The 2025 season in NDOW's own numbers

NDOW's 2025 Big Game Hunt Data is the hunter survey behind these figures: who drew, who went, who filled a tag. Success there is NDOW's own figure, successful hunters over hunters afield.

• Any ram, any legal weapon, Nov 20 - Jan 01: 2 resident tags. 2 hunters went afield and 2 filled their tag (100%). Hunters reported 2.5 days afield on average.

Roads in and the nearest towns

The longest named roads through the group are US 6;US 95, Crow Springs Road, NV 267 and NV 265. Our road inventory counts roughly 46 miles of pavement, 74 of gravel and 97 of high-clearance or four-wheel-drive track. The nearest towns are Goldfield (12 mi), Silver Peak Town (15 mi) and Tonopah (33 mi), measured from the centre of the closest unit in the group.