blackfoot-valley

Anglers may be more drawn to the Blackfoot River, one of America’s prime trout streams, where rainbow, brown, bull, and the native Westslope cutthoat trout are there for catching. The area where the river runs through the Ranch is reached by strolling along the short dirt track branching off from Wales Creek Road to a gravel quarry and hiking from there down to the most scenic part where one hundred-foot bluffs rise steeply from the other side of the river. From this point on the bank, the Blackfoot River can be explored from more than a mile and a half either upstream or downstream with Ranch land on both sides. If you stay on the left bank, you are on Ranch property for over two miles downstream and three miles upstream. A place of special historical interest is the old one-room Wales Creek schoolhouse, a mile up the road across the “Desert” from the Big House and built around the same time. It functioned from the 1910s through the 1930s. While the small structure has seen better days, it is still in remarkably good condition. Though its authenticity may have been compromised to a degree by the galvanized steel roof, repair has kept it weathertight for many years, preserving the historic interior. A weathered remnant of the old roof still shel- ters the doorway. (A worthy project would be to provide a new shingle roof in the style of the old one, allowing for weathering over the years to darken the shingles.) Even with a tin roof, the Wales schoolhouse is highly interesting. The door and windows are original, and the style of its wood-slat siding evoke its 159