Unit 514

The Beartooth Mountains dominate the southern landscape, with named peaks including Beartooth Mountain, Mount Rosebud, and Castle Mountain serving as prominent glassing features and navigation anchors. In lower country, Sacrifice Cliff and Limestone Palisades provide recognizable landmarks near river corridors. The Hellroaring Plateau, Silver Run Plateau, and East Rosebud Plateau offer high-point vantage for surveying terrain.

Major drainages like Hellroaring Creek, Cascade Creek, and the East Fork West Red Lodge Creek serve as travel corridors and navigation guides through timbered sections.

Elevation spans from 3,000 feet along river bottoms to over 12,500 feet in the high Beartooths, creating distinct habitat zones. Lower elevations feature sagebrush benches, grassland plateaus, and scattered ponderosa stands. Mid-elevation slopes transition into mixed conifer forests with Douglas fir and lodgepole pine.

Upper slopes and ridges support spruce-fir forests and alpine terrain. The majority of the unit sits in lower-to-mid elevations, with timbered slopes becoming denser as terrain steepens toward the mountains. This vertical relief creates varied hunting opportunity with distinct seasonal movement corridors.

Over 2,400 miles of road network provide substantial connectivity, with Highway 310, State Routes 72 and 78, and Interstate 90 offering multiple entry points from Billings and surrounding towns. Red Lodge, Absarokee, and Roscoe serve as logical staging areas. The road density and multiple access corridors mean significant hunting pressure is likely on lower benches and near highway corridors, particularly on public lands near major drainages.

Upper terrain and Beartooth National Forest areas see less pressure but require more effort to reach. Strategic hunters should plan to penetrate beyond roadside access.

Unit 514 encompasses roughly 2,000 square miles spanning portions of Carbon, Stillwater, and Yellowstone counties in south-central Montana. The unit's northeastern boundary runs along the Yellowstone River corridor near Billings, while the southern boundary traces the Wyoming state line along Custer-Gallatin National Forest. The Stillwater and Rosebud Rivers form major drainage systems through the middle of the unit, flowing northeast toward Absarokee and Billings.

This is transition country—the unit captures the zone between productive lower valleys and the high alpine peaks of the Beartooth Mountains. Highway 310 and State Routes 72 and 78 provide major access arteries.

The Stillwater and Rosebud Rivers are the unit's water backbone, flowing northeast through the entire unit with reliable year-round flow. East and West Rosebud Rivers join at Absarokee before merging with the Stillwater. Major tributaries including Hellroaring Creek, Cascade Creek, and Sheridan Creek provide secondary drainage systems with consistent water in upper elevations.

Several named lakes exist at higher elevations—East Rosebud Lake, Elk Lake, and Crow Lake among them. Lower benches and plateaus offer limited water, making upper drainages critical for late-season hunting strategy.

Moose habitat in Unit 514 centers on riparian willows and conifer-aspen-willow transitions along major river systems and wet drainages. The Stillwater and Rosebud Rivers and their tributaries offer prime moose country, particularly in willow-choked sections where water flows through timbered terrain. Early season hunting can focus on lower drainage systems and creek bottoms before snow drives animals higher.

Rut activity peaks in fall, concentrating moose in accessible willow patches. Later season requires elevation gain into timbered slopes where scattered wet meadows and seepage areas hold animals. Terrain complexity demands careful planning—know your access routes and understand public/private boundaries before hunting.