Colorado’s Blaze Orange Rule: What Actually Counts

Colorado Hunting · Regulations

Elk River Sports · Steamboat Springs, Colorado · Verified against CPW, September 2026

The short version. If you’re hunting deer, elk, pronghorn, moose or bear on any firearm license, you need 500 square inches of solid daylight fluorescent orange or pink on an outer garment above the waist, plus a hat of the same color visible from every direction.

Camo orange doesn’t count. A hat on its own doesn’t count. A vest alone usually does.

This is the rule that catches out-of-state hunters more than any other in Colorado, and it’s worth getting exactly right — not because a citation is likely, but because the whole point of the color is that somebody sees you.

What CPW actually says

“Hunters must wear at least 500 square inches of solid daylight fluorescent orange or fluorescent pink material on an outer garment above the waist while hunting deer, elk, pronghorn, moose or bear with any firearm license.”
Colorado Parks and Wildlife

A fluorescent orange or pink hat or head covering is also required, and it has to be visible from all directions. CPW is explicit on two further points: camouflage orange or pink does not qualify, and mesh garments are legal but not recommended.

Counts

• Solid blaze orange or fluorescent pink
• Worn on an outer garment
• Above the waist
• Vest, jacket, hoodie or shirt
• Mesh — legal, though CPW discourages it

Doesn’t count

• Camouflage patterns that include orange
• Orange worn under a jacket
• Anything below the waist
• A hat on its own
• Red, or “hunter’s red”

How much is 500 square inches?

It’s a number almost nobody can picture, which is why people get it wrong. Five hundred square inches is a rectangle roughly 25 inches by 20 inches — about the size of a large trash bag laid flat.

In practice:

• A standard adult hunting vest clears it comfortably. Front and back panels together are well past 500 square inches on any full-size vest. That’s why the vest is the default answer.
• A hat alone is nowhere close, and the hat is a separate requirement anyway — it doesn’t count toward the 500.
• A youth vest may not clear it on a smaller frame. Worth checking rather than assuming.
• Orange gloves, gaiters and boot panels do nothing for you. Below the waist doesn’t count.

We’re measuring ours. We’re working through the orange we stock and will publish the actual square-inch figure for each garment on this page, so you can stop guessing. If you want a specific one measured before you drive up, call the shop and we’ll go measure it.

Who has to wear it

It applies while hunting deer, elk, pronghorn, moose or bear with any firearm license. That includes muzzleloader hunters, and it includes archers hunting during any rifle season — which is the part bowhunters miss.

Archers holding an archery-only license during archery season are exempt, as are hunters in the Ranching for Wildlife program. CPW encourages both groups to wear it anyway.

If you hunt from a ground blind: CPW says hunters should display orange or pink visible from all directions on the outside of the blind. A pop-up blind in dark fabric in the timber during rifle season is exactly the situation the rule exists for.

The pack problem

Here’s the practical failure we see most often, and it’s worth thinking about even though it isn’t written into the regulation text: you put on a legal orange vest, then you put a large pack on over it. From behind — the direction another hunter is most likely to be reading you from — your orange is now mostly pack.

Hunter education materials commonly warn about this, and it comes up on Colorado hunting forums every fall. CPW’s own published guidance doesn’t spell out a pack rule, so we’re not going to tell you it’s the law. We’re telling you it defeats the purpose. Wear the vest over the pack, run an orange pack cover, or clip orange to the back of the pack.

Get it sorted before you drive

We’ve pulled every piece of solid blaze orange we carry into one place — vests, hats, and hoodies that count toward the 500.

Shop blaze orange →

Camo patterns with orange in them are deliberately not in that category, because they don’t satisfy the rule.

Season reminders from a shop that hunts here

A note before each rifle season opens, and the dates when CPW confirms them. Nothing else.

Related

• 2026 Colorado big game season dates — with a live indicator for what’s open today
• Are trail cameras legal in Colorado? — the regulation quoted in full
• 2027 Colorado big game season dates — already fixed by CPW

Sources. Quotations and requirements taken from Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s in-the-field guidance for elk and deer. The pack section is explicitly flagged as practical advice rather than regulation, because CPW’s published guidance doesn’t address it.

Confirm against the current CPW big game brochure before you hunt. If we have something wrong here, tell us and we’ll fix it the same day.