Unit 201 sits in the far northwest corner of Moffat County, hard against the Wyoming line to the north and the Utah line to the west out by Browns Park, and it's one of the four trophy elk units in this corner of the state. Don't picture green Colorado high country—this is high semi-arid plateau, roughly 5,400 to 9,600 feet, sage and juniper and pinyon broken up by stream-cut canyons, with Cold Spring Mountain the big landmark sitting basically in the center of the unit. Up on top there are tons of roads, which is how most people hunt it, and the access in is generally above Browns Park and onto Cold Spring Mountain itself. Land status is friendly for a trophy unit—right around 85 to 90 percent public between BLM and State Land Board ground, and a landowner agreement has even opened several thousand more acres that used to be locked. There's a small herd of desert elk that lives here year-round, which is genuinely unusual and part of what gives the unit its character. The thing you have to understand about 201 is that you basically can't draw it—it's the hardest tag of the big four up here, with residents stacking somewhere north of two dozen preference points and nonresidents burning close to thirty, so if you've got a tag for this place you waited half a lifetime for it. The country itself can turn nasty where it counts: the south-facing slopes off the high points like Diamond Peak and Middle Mountain are rough, rocky and rugged, and that's exactly where the older bulls tuck in. Maybell is the nearest spot for fuel and Rangely sits south of the unit for a motel and supplies, but its a long way from anywhere and the cell service is gone the second you leave the highway. One quirk worth knowing—the elk rut up here draws a crowd of looky-loos just there to watch, so you'll share the good country with people who arent even hunting. Roads on top are fine dry and a 4WD-and-pray situation the moment the clay gets wet.