Scroll down each page that opens to see everything.
131 acres of alpine meadow with winding brooks and lush hay fields in the heart of Colorado.
The property comes with a comfortable two bedroom year-round home for your family plus guest cabins for extra income.
After honoring the rentals for this year, consider letting those be accommodations for extra help, family and friends
or continue to rent the cabins as you wish to paying guests.
Create a Dude Ranch! Offer a stable and a place to ride for people who own horses, llamas, ponies ...
The whole package with 131 acres, 3 cabins and valuable water rights is only $988,000.
The irrigation ditches function by gravity with no additional pumping required.
This precious pocket of land that can impart a rancher's wisdom
and appreciation of how one's land fits in with natural rhythms. .
Scroll down for a close view of the three cabins in the far reach of the meadow.
Scroll down for aerial-like view of the lands.
Imagine a meadow whose rich textures of grasses and clovers envelop one with a sense of well being.
The Timothy grass sends its blooms as high as a pony. The purple tops of Red Top clover sway under
the clacking of aspen leaves. The summer rains have produced a bountiful yield that can keep many
animals fed and happy during the winter. Each handful of feed is like a burst of summer memories.
From the 1920's to forties, Grand County became "The Dude Ranching Capital of Colorado."
We speak in the past tense only because horseback riding has been
displaced by motorized travel by early Fords and more
recently by ATVs, UTVs, snowmobiles, side-by-sides and
motorcycles. The equestrian spirit lives on just barely under the surface.
Extensive National Forest Trails start a mile up the road from the
ranch. In the winter, one can snowmobile all the way to Grand Lake.
For more privacy and safety, the ranch may have its own private trails
designated for riding, mountain biking and even dog-sledding ~~ complete
with dinner rides!
Whether you wish to raise cattle, emu, fish or hay, this is a rare
opportunity to have a genuine high country ranch just two hours from
Denver.
To ensure that the haying fields remain green during a heat spell in the summer,
valuable water rights are included. The irrigation ditches function by gravity
with no additional pumping required. In addition to the land and water rights,
you also get THREE 2-bedroom log-sided cabins!
Scroll down to see how the grand meadow opens up more to the right.
Scroll down to see more to the right along the three cabins that are included.
Scroll down to zoom in on the three cabins to the right of the middle of
the photo above. The ponds can be adapted for raising trout and maybe kokanee
salmon!
If the health department allows, sell the production directly to
restaurants or offer catch and cook on site services to the next
generation of dude ranchers.
Create a tree farm; sell to businesses and home-owners. Outsource transplanting services or do as much on site as you please.
Have a Christmas tree farm. Sleigh rides, jingle bells . . . dog sled rides, cross-country skiing . . .
These cabins will help make one's transition to the area easy and
enjoyable. Scroll down for more fine views of the grand meadow.
Scroll down for scenes of the annual cutting of the grasses for winter feed.
Scroll down to turn up the fall colors.
The land near and above the line of aspen is entitled to commercial well permits for serving a new home of your own design.
These well permits are optional and could come from water rights in place to keep
the meadow irrigated during the hottest days of the summer.
The weather always challenges one to get the hay gathered before it gets rained upon.
Scroll down to see the ranch in Spring.
The cabins are just off to the left. The 131 acres starts near the line of aspen and extends out to about the
middle of the picture. Scroll down to see more to the right.
Scroll down to see where the Red Top Irrigation stream starts a giant
U-turn in the upper portion of the meadow (beyond the 131 acres) off to the right.
Excess runoff can flow to Lake Granby, partly visible in the upper right.
The distant rim of mountains draws one's eyes towards Winter Park.
Scroll down to pass through the aspen and into the meadow.
The ranch's water rights keep this stream flowing along a contour to
spread the water far and wide. Scroll down to see a "bear" in the woods.
Scroll down to admire the red top clover.
Scroll down ...
Timothy grass sways over patches of clover. From the road it may look like a simple hay meadow.
Up close, a complex web of plants and tiny organisms grows and expands
hidden from view under a pleasant sea of grasses and snow.
Scroll down ...
Scroll down ...
. . .
The 131 acres includes most of the lower meadow to where it stretches
between the feet of little hills to the left and right.
Stillwater
Creek runs through the willows and to the ranch in the distance with the
sun shining on it. The creek hooks around the
hill to the left and makes a bee-line for Lake Granby. Scroll down
to see an example of the three cabins that have been built.
In the photo above, the three cabins are the nearest middle structures in the left half of
the picture.
Scroll down to see more of the area. Interior photos of the cabins will
be in later. Each covered front porch has a view to
the snowy ridges in the distance. In the summertime, the left area
in particular turns very green. Those snowy mantels can be reach by
snowmobile
in the winter via groomed trails. The trail system starts a mile farther
up Road 4, where the huge Arapaho National Forest begins its reach far
to the north and west.
Wheels and bales of fresh cut grasses set along the contours capture
the essence of a productive ranch in the fall. Scroll down to add snow.
Grand County used to be "The Dude Ranching Capital of Colorado." We speak in the past tense only because horseback riding
has been
displaced by motorized travel by ATV, UTV, snowmobile, side-by-side and
motorcycle. Extensive National Forest Trails
start a mile up the road from the
ranch. In the winter, one can snowmobile all the way to Grand Lake. For more privacy and safety,
the ranch can have its own private trails
designated for riding, mountain biking and even dog-sledding ~~ complete
with dinner rides!
Scroll down for close-ups of some of the happy individuals raised here.
Scroll down for a family portrait.
Thanks for visiting. Hope to see you again soon!
There are only a few counties in Colorado with as much moisture as Grand
County, on the western slope of the Continental Divide.
Early explorers saw immediately the abundance of water and started cutting ditches across slopes and then making tunnels
that still run today for miles below the Front Range mountains of Colorado. In the far back of the meadow in the photo above,
the Red Top Irrigation Stream has completely ceased its June and July
flow that originated from many miles up north in the Colorado River.
This oldest and largest among Grand County's irrigation streams flows in along the upper right side of the photo.
The stream flows to the far end of the meadow and then returns along the left hand side of the meadow and picture.
Like a lazy river, she quietly slips by just above much of the land and
eventually spreads out in ranches downstream to the southwest.
Click on photo for more
..
.. return to list ..