blackfoot-valley

The larger southern sector, including the headquarters area, drains into lower Nevada Creek via Douglas, Cottonwood, and McElwain creeks. Apart from the headquarters area, it consists mostly of hilly forested land, much of which is grazed during the warmer parts of the year, the cattle foraging freely in the hills among the trees. Most of this area, including much of the land not owned but leased by the Ranch, extends a dozen miles or so west and south of the headquarters complex and is accessible on a few roads, mainly to high-clearance and four-wheel-drive vehicles. Only a short stretch, on the Helmville-Drummond road (State Rt. 271) along its southeast edge, is easily reached by ordinary passenger car. (Actually, there is a third distinctly minor piece of the Ranch land, be- tween its northern and southern sections, separated from both. In 2002 there has been talk about a possible “landswap” with the Bureau of Land Management, which would involve several smaller pieces of leased BLM land in the area of the southern section. As can be readily seen from the map, an exchange involving roughly equal areas could make sense for both parties, the BLM acquiring a more easily administered single area in place of several isolated smaller ones, with the Ranch extending its contiguous owned area while removing some “holes.”) “A 4th of July party” 157