Cowboys & Indians
Maytag Mountain Ranch - Family ranch life in Colorado - by Larry Sandberg
June 2004
Leaving the interstate I go down increasingly rural Colorado country roads, Denver's worries and congestion farther behind with every turn. The gentle curves of Bighorn Sheep Canyon offer glimpses of the blue-black ripples of the Arkansas, one of America's premier white-water-rafting and blue-ribbon trout-fishing rivers. The blacktop trails six miles south, following the path taken by Lt. Zebulon Pike as he mapped out the Wet Mountain Valley just two years after the Louisiana Purchase. The dramatic peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range rear up to the west, framing the almost delicate high mountain valley against the softer, rounder Wet Mountains to the east.
This is the setting as I pull up to Maytag Mountain Ranch headquarters. Dogs come out to greet me first, followed by Russ Maytag, my host and the owner of the ranch. A tall man in a cowboy hat and neat working clothes, Maytag is molding his 2,953 acres near Westcliffe in south-central Colorado into a dynamic ranch-preservation community. A rancher's son, Maytag bought the land in 1978 and in 1987 revolutionized his operation by turning to grass-based beef production. No more raising calves to be shipped off to feedlots. Instead, Maytag brought his cattle to maturity on his own pastures, letting them feed on nature's grasses. He turned the ranch ecologically green. Even the salt licks come from sea kelp, and the dust suppressant is environmentally friendly.
Now the land is undergoing another revolution. To perpetuate the ranch and its grazing legacy, Maytag is inviting 26 homesteaders to join him as equal partners to share the ranch. A relatively new concept, the ranch-preservation community appeals especially to people who want to enjoy a large Western spread but who can't be there to maintain fences, buck bales, or feed the cows. Maytag's old friend and ski-team competitor Jeff Temple has already succeeded with just such a community near Steamboat Springs called Storm Mountain Ranch, which received the Colorado Governor's Smart Growth Award.
At Maytag, Temple has reassembled his team of land planners, hydrologists, geologists, and architects to carefully add amenities to the ranch: the livin'-large Cookhouse Lodge, barn, round pen and riding arena, permaculture fruit and vegetable garden, trout ponds and extensively restored trout stream habitat, trails, and two elegant guest cabins. The team laid out only 26 new building envelopes, each designed to feel like its very own 3,000-acre ranch. They planned and studied for three years before they even broke ground.A quick stretch of the legs after my three-hour drive from Denver, and Maytag takes me to meet manager Mike Leal. As a young man in Texas, Leal rode bulls and broncs and held on for eight - he has the belt buckles to prove it. Now he's sitting belt-buckle-up to his computer desk, riding a mouse. "I'd rather be outdoors," he says, "but it's 2004." Still, Leal's outside plenty, riding fences, feeding hay, and moving the cattle from one area of the ranch to another so they won't overgraze. Running gras-fed beef requires careful tracking and management of the grazing areas - hence the computer and high-speed wireless Internet throughout the ranch's central compound.
Leal shows me the barn and introduces me to all the ranch horses: Apache, Shannon, Buck, Zane Grey, and Tigger. From the looks of it, they live about as well as any horse could - seven stalls, a wash rack with heated water, complete with shampoos and vet medicine - a regular horse Hilton. We leave through the rack room, which is tricked out with custom Maytag Ranch saddles. Green as I am, Leal assures me the gentle ranch horses will provide a comfortable ride across the 10 miles of trails on the ranch.
Ambling down to the Cookhouse Lodge, I remember that the last time I "saw" the lodge, it was a rough architect's sketch. Now it's complete - and even more amazing in timber and stone than it was on paper. With its atrium ceiling, broad views of the Sangres, professional kitchen, tasteful Western décor, hand-cast bronze Western lighting, and seating areas for both large and small groups, you want to kick off your boots and stay a good long while. Russ' wife, Jeannie, and Mike's wife, Dixie Clare - and a big platter of sandwich fixin's - are waiting for us. Jeannie's mom was an educator, but nothing could keep her from the horses that surrounded her as a kid. She started bareback and grew up to win in both the English and Western divisions at the National Western Stock Show. Dixie describes herself as "mike's left-hand man," but with her right hand, she's a skilled artist and muralist, whose work graces the ranch's Price Place cabin as well as the walls of many of Cripple Creek's casinos.
The Maytags' teenage daughter, Samantha, joins us, and we eat and talk, enjoying some country camaraderie. She's a part-city, all-country girl, eager to share the rich experiences growing up on the ranch has given her. "When my friends come here to spend time, they're impressed with the things that I take for granted," she says. "How the horses nicker when you open the barn door in the morning the smell of the pine shavings and the sound of the houses crunching hay, the big trout you can catch."
The homesteaders will get in on all that, and a lot more. "This land is just resplendent," Sam says. And she's right - the land is resplendent. "There's the 360-degree view of the mountains and meadow. And you get to share all of this with herds of elk, deer, and antelope," she says. "It's the perfect place to invent adventures riding, fishing, and biking. If you hike, you notice the changing of the wildflowers with the seasons. You see wild turkeys, fawns and calves. You notice that the air smells humid when you walk through the meadows and streams. If you take the time to be on the ground, you experience things you never can in a car."
Sam's evocation of nature leaves us itching for the outdoors. It's a little far to hoof it, htough, so we jump in the pickup to go have a look at the three areas where the homestead sites are grouped. As we head for the Lake Creek homesteads adjacent to the trout stream a coyote studies us for a while, then lopes off. Then we travel down Running Bear Road to the Sangre de Cristo homesteads situated dramatically in the oak brush and pinon below the peaks. The road gets its name from a time Maytag startled a bear here, but all we see today is a lone cottontail. Last on our list are the homesteads closer to the lodge. As I look around picturing the kind of place I'd build and the kind of life I'd have, a red-tailed hawk suddenly takes wing.
That night after a great meal in nearby Westcliffe, I make myself at home in the comfort of my guest cabin. Bright stars - more than I can ever remember seeing - shine overhead. Under the influence of the night sky, clear mountain air, and the kind folks at Maytag Mountain Ranch, I'm ready to call it a day - a very good one - and hit the hay. I think back on something Samantha said about sleep coming easily on the ranch: "I'm always tired fro the day's activities, but I know that in some small way I've made a difference." Imagining how nice it would be to live like that in a place like this, I drift off to dream.
