Life in the Saddle
On long moves like this one, a rancher’s saddle is just as important as the horse she’s riding.
The Ranchlands Review
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Ranchlands Quarantunes
Here’s a selection of favorite Western songs from our apprentice Brandon, many of which he’ll play out loud on his phone during a long cattle trail.
Salted Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies Recipe
Our Zapata chef Chase Kelly bakes these cookies just before check-in and places them in guests’ rooms moments before their arrival so they’re greeted by the smell of freshly baked...
Ethical Eating at the Zapata Lodge
The dining room at the Zapata Lodge is a place to learn about how to eat intentionally, responsibly, and ethically.
Regenerative Ranching: Old Mojo in a New Age
What do we mean when we use the term “regenerative agriculture”? In our view, it is a coalescing of people who care and are actively doing something about the ecological...
Monitoring our Impact on the Land
There is more than one way to know a place. There is more than one way to see a landscape. There is more than one way to understand land health....
Where the Gate is Always Open
The Chico belongs to the people of Colorado, to the thousands of children who visit the ranch in school groups each year, to future generations of humans who might still...
Sunburns and Swifties
When I was tasked with finding and photographing some of the resident swift foxes at Chico Basin Ranch, I suspected that I would be spending a lot of time doing...
Beefmasters: The Fertile Cow
Of all the diverse classes of cattle we have on the Chico, our mother cows work the hardest.
Beefmasters: The Bull
The Beefmaster bull is a symbol of strength and resilience in a herd that is built for production, endurance, and efficiency.
Beefmasters: A Philosophy Embodied
A Beefmaster cow is more that an animal; she is a management philosophy embodied – a flesh-and-blood way of living with the land that represents how humans and their animals...
Spring Musings
I was thinking today about how different spring times can be from one year to the next.
Here Comes Branding Season
As the days lengthen, drawing winter closer to spring, we begin readying ourselves for calving season, which officially starts for us April 1st and goes into June. In a normal...
Elk Encounters
Wildlife biologist Wes Larson, also known as Griz Kid for his frequent work with bears, spent some time at the Zapata tracking down and photographing a few of the ranch’s...
The Bison and the Rancher
How ranchers and the bison they manage might save each other from extinction.
Meet Deuce the Ranch Dog
Deuce Meldon, the hanging tree cowdog who belongs to Chico Basin Ranch’s foreman Jake, is both a loyal companion and a helpful herder. His whole life revolves around working cows,...
History of Bison in the San Luis Valley
The evidence available to determine the history of bison ecology in the SLV is scant.
Learning to Think Like a Mountain
Aldo Leopold, considered by many the father of wildlife conservation and the wilderness system in America, once wrote of watching a wolf die when he was young.
