Our favorite female musicians
Celebrating our favorite songs by women for Women’s History Month.
Ranchlands Today
In the Unknown Certainty of Tomorrow It is November 1999. I am standing in the Chico Basin ranch corrals, watching […]
Horses and Helicopters
There’s definitely certain situations where the helicopter shines. But cutting pairs, sorting cattle, you can’t do that in a helicopter or a bike, that’s a horse job. The interesting thing is that people think it’s one or the other, but in combination, you can’t beat it.
The History of Zapata Ranch
Archaeological investigations have documented that the San Luis Valley was utilized by various Native American cultures for thousands of years. The earliest time period, the Paleo-Indian stage (approximately 11,500 B.P. to 7,800 B.P.), was characterized by highly mobile, specialized big-game hunters whose sites are sometimes associated with the remains of extinct megafauna such as mammoth, bison, camel, and ground sloths.
A Timeless Trade
Ranching is a trade that is deeply rooted in history and tradition as well as being on the forefront of progress and innovation. It is a trade that can be photographed 50 years apart with little to no noticeable change. A “timeless trade” not just stylistically or aesthetically, but in that its practices, rooted in caring for the land and providing for the people, are as relevant now as they were 100 years ago.
How the Dunes Were Formed
Thousands of years ago, a large plate in the Earth’s surface shifted. This rift created the San Luis Valley in Colorado, a valley roughly the size of Connecticut. As the plate rifted and rotated it pushed up a large mountain formation we refer to today as the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. The San Juan mountains, which form the southwest border of the Valley, were formed due to violent volcanic activity.
Our Summer Reading List
From epic novels about the “old West” to meditations on the natural world and humanity’s place in it, from horsemanship instructionals to our favorite cookbooks, a (non-comprehensive) list of titles recommended by the Ranchlands team.
Duke Jr.
Someone once called my father a rugged individualist, which, as I look back, comes pretty close.
Ruth Rees Phillips
Ruth Rees Phillips was my mother. She was raised in San Antonio, Texas, where she met and married my father […]
A Brief History of Chico Basin Ranch
From Native Americans to homesteaders and state ownership.