blackfoot-valley

The Meyer Company Ranch, including leased land, straddles a spread of some 33,500 acres in the central part of Powell County in western Montana not far west of the Continental Divide on the Pacific side. The area may be consid- ered part of the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S. since its waters thus drain into the Columbia River system. In a physiographic sense it is part of the Rocky Mountain system. The Great Plains region adjoining the Rockies to the east is part of the more arid (strictly speaking, semi-arid) western portion of the North American Interior Plains, which stretch eastward all the way to the Appalachian Mountain system that runs from northern Alabama to western New York and Canada’s Atlantic provinces. The Ranch is located about halfway between Missoula and the state capi- tal, Helena. From its headquarters, just outside the small town of Helmville, it is a drive of 67 miles to Missoula on paved highways, or a few miles less if you take the 15-mile gravel-surfaced county road to Ovando, rather than via Helm- ville. Helena is actually a little closer at 62 miles via Avon, but lies across the Continental Divide and a 6300-foot pass by that route. Missoula is therefor the most accessible city for shopping and supplies year-round, and is the location of the Ranch’s business office. (For brevity, in these pages we’ll refer to it as just the “Ranch”, capitalized.) The Land 12