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Written by Knight Ridder
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Wednesday, 31 May 2006 |
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The first sound a city slicker hears at 5:30 a.m. at Chico Basin Ranch is ... nothing. No television. No traffic whizzing by. Then, a thousand sounds. Insects dance. Songbirds call, then their calls fracture into at least 10 distinct voices, like a feathery cocktail party. Geese honk. Cattle bleat. A horse sighs. The wind howls a long way off, as it gathers force across the prairie, like a wave.
Only 35 miles southeast of Colorado Springs, this ranch resides in an odd place between the city and the Old West.
Chico Basin, an 87,000-acre working ranch, flings open its gates to visitors who come to play cowboy, to meet the mythical West, to ride horses and to earn callouses.
Visitors to Chico Basin Ranch leave with more than they bargained for. Sure, they get sore behinds from the saddle and they get to experience ranch life.
They also get an education.
They come to see a ranch as an intricate ecosystem, from the dung beetles to the cattle. And they get a sense of the precarious nature of working ranches, the uneasy balance between rural and urban life in the West.
In 1999, Phillips won the bid for a 25-year lease of the ranch from the state of Colorado. He promised to do three things: run a cattle ranch, open the land to recreation, and use the ranch for education.
Phillips and his crew welcome their visitors by putting them to work.
At a corral out front of the Holmes Bunkhouse, Brian and Lauren Wyka saddle up and head off to meet the cowboy crew. Away from the creek beds and cottonwoods, the land is sparse, loosely covered with Cholla cactus.
The crew of ranch hands and guests sets off into a nearby pasture, past a graveyard for old Ford trucks and dead cattle. The mission this morning is to drive a 250-head herd of heifers and calves into the corral.
The cows and calves eye the horses and riders warily as they ease into the pasture.
The riders reach the back of the pasture, then spread out to begin pushing the cattle toward the corral. Old hands and greenhorns each take a swath of the pasture. The cattle are docile as they move slowly across the pastures. They know the routine.
By the time the cattle are herded to the corral it is time for lunch. Dusty and tired, the cowboys and their de facto crew walk past several sets of curious eyes.
A few hours later Phillips looks beat. But it is time to ride out again and gather up another herd of cattle for the corral.
Later, some of the tired hands will gather with their tired guests for supper.
The moon is huge and orange as it rises over the horizon. Then it fades to yellow as it climbs the sky, peeking through the skeletal arms of a cottonwood.
The birds are quiet now. The horses stir. A mouse scurries about. Then they stop, and all that’s left is the silence of the moon and stars.
IF YOU GO:
Chico Basin Ranch, 22500 Peyton Highway South, Colorado Springs, CO 80928
Contact:
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
, www.chicobasinranch.com or (719) 683-7960
The ranch has several options for visitors, including:
_Day use: hike, bird-watch and picnic for a $10 day-use fee. Call ahead.
_Working Ranch Experience: Be part of the crew.
_Advanced Working Ranch Experience: Help manage herds of up to 1,200 head of cattle on horseback, or brand more than 500 calves in one day. Adults-only weeks, family weeks and women-only weeks.
_Box T Cowboy Camps: Ride the range, drive cattle, and camp under the stars after eating a traditional cowboy dinner around a campfire.
_Ranching on Your Own/Independent Riding Vacations: Stay in a remote, historic house and wake up to the wide-open prairie each morning.
_Birding/Wildlife Stay packages: Observe Swainson’s thrush, Western Tanagers, Mountain Plovers and burrowing owls, among many others. | Only registered users can write comments.
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