Getting to know Buffalo Peaks Ranch

As many of you know, the Rocky Mountain Land Library is working with Park County and the City of Aurora to locate a majority of our books and educational programs at South Park’s Buffalo Peaks Ranch, near the headwaters of the South Platte River. This historic ranch presents the Rocky Mountain Land Library with the opportunity to establish a truly unique residential land-study center for the southern Rockies. We are also incredibly fortunate to be working with Park County’s nationally recognized effort to preserve the natural and cultural heritage of a truly unique Western landscape.

Buffalo Peaks Ranch will provide both quiet and inspiration for lifelong learners of all types, including artists, writers, naturalists, scientists, and students at all levels. Everyone will have access not only to the Land Library 25,000+ volumes, but also to South Park’s surrounding landscape of high mountain grasslands and alpine summits.

Stay tuned for updates and exciting developments in the months ahead, but for now we wanted you all to get to know Buffalo Peaks Ranch. We hope you enjoy this fun film clip!

Looking up valley, through the old corrals, toward Mount Silverheels.

Students from the University of Colorado’s Graduate School of Architecture examine the far barn, and also get a lay of the land.

For more on Buffalo Peaks Ranch and the high mountain grasslands of South Park, be sure to check out our earlier posts!

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Keeping the Home Fires Burning

What do you hope to learn about in the coming new year? It’s an exciting prospect to set yourself a course of study, and little by little gain insight into what matters most to you. For the Land Library, our endless (and always rewarding) quest is to learn more about our place on earth.

From that yearning was born our 25,000 volume collection of natural history books — and also the Rocky Mountain Land Series, our long-running series of author talks, presented in partnership with the Tattered Cover Book Store. Today, we’re excited to announce the Land Series 2011 Winter lineup of authors, photographers, historians, and naturalists. Each Land Series presenter widens our appreciation of the stories behind our age-old relationship with the land, and for that we are extremely grateful!

Historian Douglas Brinkley (pictured above) rejoins the Land Series with his new book The Quiet World: Saving Alaska’s Wilderness Kingdom 1879-1960. This is the second volume in Brinkley’s planned Wilderness Cycle, and he was last with us for the cycle’s beginning: The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America. This latest volume introduces a lively cast of characters influential in preserving the Alaskan wilderness, visionaries such as William O. Douglas, Charles Sheldon, John Muir, Bob Marshall, and the marvelous Muries (Olaus, Mardy, and Adolph).

Douglas Brinkley is a marvelous storyteller in print and in person, so we hope you can join us for a very special evening!

Intrepid traveler Sara Wheeler will return us to the arctic wilderness with her new book The Magnetic North: Travels in the Arctic. More than a decade ago she traveled to the opposite tip of the world in her classic book Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica (also pictured above).

With The Magnetic North, Sara Wheeler leads us on a circumpolar route, providing an up-to-the-minute portrait of a region growing in global importance day by day.

Closer to home, we also have:

Oil and gas industry veteran Bob Cavnar will join us to discuss his behind-the scenes analysis of an accident we were all assured could never happen: Disaster on the Horizon: High Stakes, High Risks, and the Story Behind the Deepwater Well Blowout. Mark White, former governor of Texas writes: “Bob Cavnar has written the definitive story of the blowout in the Gulf….A must read for everyone concerned about the oil industry, the effectiveness of government regulation, and America’s energy future.”

We’re also happy to welcome back David Wann. David has joined us in the past for such books as Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic, Simple Prosperity, and Reinventing Community. His new book, The New Normal: An Agenda for Responsible Living places each individual’s responsibility for a healthy planet front and center.

OK, wait a minute — who is this man, and why does he look so familiar??

We have been lucky enough to have Robert Michael Pyle join us several times before, but it is with special enthusiasm that we’ll be welcoming Bob back this year. The Thunder Tree: Lessons from an Urban Wildland, is a beautifully written memoir of Bob’s growing up along Denver’s High Line Canal. His carefree mucking-about cast the seeds for his future life as a naturalist. The Thunder Tree will soon be released in a new paperback edition (with a foreword by Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods):

And lastly, here’s an author we’ve been hearing about for quite some time:

We first became aware of Philip Connors in The Paris Review‘s Summer 2008 issue. For nearly a decade, Connors has spent half of each year in a fire lookout tower in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest.

Here’s a book that many, many people are talking about, months before its publication!

“What a wonderful book. Philip Connors went up to the mountaintop to serve as a lookout and he came down with a masterwork of close observation, deep reflection, and hard-won wisdom. This is an unforgettable reckoning with the American land.” Philip Gourevitch

So PLEASE join us this Winter for the chance to meet the following authors!

ROCKY MOUNTAIN LAND SERIES Winter 2011

Saturday, January 22nd, 2:00pm:

Bob Cavnar, author of
Disaster on the Horizon: High Stakes, High Risks, and the Story Behind the Deepwater Well Blowout

Wednesday, January 26th, 7:30pm:

Douglas Brinkley, author of
The Quiet World: Saving Alaska’s Wilderness Kingdom 1879-1960

Thursday, February 10th, 7:30pm:

David Wann, author of
The New Normal: an Agenda for Responsible Living

Monday, March 14th, 7:30pm:

Sara Wheeler, author of
The Magnetic North: Travels in the Arctic

April, exact date & time TBA:

Robert Michael Pyle, author of
The Thunder Tree: Lessons from an Urban Wildland

Tuesday, May 3rd, 7:30pm:

Philip Connors, author of
Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout

All Land Series events will take place at the Tattered Cover’s Historic LoDo Book Store (16th & Wynkoop in lower downtown Denver). For more information, visit the Tattered Cover’s event page. Each program is FREE of charge — truly a wonderful opportunity for lifelong learners of all ages!

And be sure to check-in for updates. With more new books on their way, many more authors will be booked in the weeks ahead! Hopefully, authors such as Hannah Nordhaus (her new book is pictured below). Stay tuned!

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The Gift of Time and Space

From the very beginning, a key element to the Rocky Mountain Land Library’s vison has been the creation of a residential library, a unique place where people can come and stay, prolonging their exploration of the books, and the surrounding lands. Yes, we’ll have workshops, field trips & classes, but we’ll also have quiet spaces for people to pursue the projects of their own design.

Author and naturalist Henry Beston built such a place in 1925 (pictured above). The time he spent at his tiny dune shack was the inspiration for a true natural history classic, The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod. Over the years, literary pilgrims flocked to Beston’s simple shack, until it was finally claimed by the sea in the Great Blizzard of February 1978. The shack was so close to the ocean that Beston once commented on its ten windows and immediate views of the Atlantic — so close that he felt as if he were aboard a ship.

We just came across a wonderful new book to fuel our inspiration to create simple quiet places that give people the gift of time and uncluttered space. Alex Johnson’s Shedworking: The Alternative Workplace Revolution is full of ingenious huts from around the world. (For more information, visit Alex’s excellent site, www.shedworking.co.uk!).

We especially loved his chapter on the history of huts for writers, artists, musicians, and the like. Here’s just a few writing huts that we were inspired by. Alex Johnson is a terrific writer, so we’ll let him do most of the describing!

Four Walls, Endless Creativity, and a Scandalous Number of Chocolate Bars:

Roald Dahl wrote many of his books in a small hut at his home at Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, England. Alex Johnson: “Dahl settled himself into a rather ancient wingback armchair, covered his legs with a rug on which he nested a large roll of corrugated paper and then his writing board. He pinned a variety of photographs and drawings onto the walls and on a table by his side he kept a personal cabinet of curiosities including one of his own arthritic hip bones and a large ball made of used silver wrappers from chocolate bars. Dahl wrote without interruption every day in what he regarded as a sanctuary from the outside world…”

A Philosopher’s Hut in the Black Forest Mountains:

Alex Johnson: “Was it the snow that attracted controversial German philosopher Martin Heidegger to his hut? Anybody who is unconvinced that working in a garden office can be life changing should read Heidegger’s Hut by Adam Sharr, in which the author looks at how Heidegger’s wooden hut near Todtnauberg in the Black Mountains of Germany is absolutely central to his philosophy and writings.”

Huck’s Hut: The Writing Shed Where Huckleberry Finn Was Born:

When Mark Twain moved to Elmira in New York State in 1874, his sister-in-law built him an octagonal one-room shed studio, which Twain loved. Alex Johnson: “‘It is a cosy nest,’ he wrote, ‘with just room in it for a sofa and a table and three or four chairs….And when the storms sweep down the remote valley and the lightning flashes above the hills beyond, and the rain beats upon the roof over my head, imagine the luxury of it!’ Twain wrote some of his most famous works in his shed including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

Dylan Thomas’ Wordsplashed Hut:

Dylan Thomas had a cliff-top writing shed on the Carmartenshire coast of Wales. Alex Johnson: “[Thomas added] an anthracite stove, bookcases and tables, and decorated it with photos and magazine cuttings of Byron, Whitman, W.H. Auden, nudes, items from Picture Post and long lists of words. In a typical working day Thomas would read, visit his parents, nip out for a drink at noon, then work and relax in what he called his ‘long tongued water and tree room on the cliff’, his ‘bard’s bothy’, and his ‘wordsplashed hut’ until 7pm.”

Michael Pollan’s Homage to a Little Cabin at Walden Pond:

Taking inspiration from Henry David Thoreau, among others, author Michael Pollan set about designing and building a tiny book-lined retreat on his Connecticut property. His journey is told in the following book from the Land Library’s shelves:

A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams, and here is the wonderfully informative (and, many times quoted here) Shedworking: The Alternative Workplace Revolution by Alex Johnson, along with Henry Beston’s classic The Outermost House.

Forget About the Nobel Prize, This is Good Enough for Popular Mechanics!

George Bernard Shaw and his whirling dervish of a hut. Alex Johnson: “It had a revolving base which used castors on a circular track. The hut, at his home in Shaw’s Corner, Ayot St. Lawrence, Hertfordshire, could thus be moved to improve the light or change the view (or indeed just for a bit of exercise). Spectaculary high-tech for its time, it also had an electric heater and a telephone connection to the house as well as an alarm clock to alert the Nobel prize winner to lunchtime.”

Finally, we wanted to share this passage from Alex Johnson’s Shedworking, so evocative of our desire for a room of one’s own, no matter what your age:

“Small spaces in general have a magical attraction on childhood….I loved spending time in the cupboard under the stairs of the first house I lived in as well as in the shed in the garden my parents helped to make using any old bits of wood lying around….I vividly remember the first time I stayed out there during a rainstorm, reveling in my spectacular luck at being able to read Tintin in my own little hideaway and not get wet.”

This post is part of an ongoing series inspired by the University of Colorado School of Architecture’s design work for Buffalo Peaks Ranch.

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The Accumulated Wisdom of Anonymous Builders

The third post in a series inspired by the University of Colorado School of Architecture’s ongoing design work for the future home of the Rocky Mountain Land Library.

Among our favorite books at the Land Library are those devoted to traditional architecture across the globe — so often simple and elegant structures built with the natural elements at hand. Yoshio Komatsu has devoted the last twenty-five years to photographing the wide diversity of homemade shelters. Built by Hand: Vernacular Buildings Across the World (with text by Bill & Athena Steen and Eiko Komatsu) is a hefty omnibus of Yoshio’s work. It’s hard to improve on the authors’ own words as they describe their book:

Built by Hand is a celebration of what is so uniquely diverse and yet similar in the buildings of different cultures around the world. Beginning with the basic ways that human beings have sought shelter — beneath the trees and stars, under protection of a rock cliff or cave — this book traces the transformation of materials such as earth, stone, wood or bamboo, into shelter.”

What Yoshio Komatsu has captured with his camera, John Taylor has equaled with his pen-and-ink drawings. A Shelter Sketchbook: Timeless Building Solutions (also pictured above) contains more than 600 elegantly simple and practical structures — the accumulated wisdom of anonymous builders, all responsive to their immediate environment and the available resources.

Here’s a few more fun books from the Land Library’s shelves:

Wonderful Houses Around the World by Yoshio Komatsu (a young adult version of Komatsu’s work, housed at our Waterton Canyon Kids Library), and our latest addition to our vernacular architecture section: Buildings Without Architects: A Global Guide to Everyday Architecture by John May.

And, here’s a true classic. We love this book so much that we have more than a few copies on hand:

Shelter, edited by Lloyd Kahn. With the oversize shape of a road atlas, Shelter is as infomation-packed as the Whole Earth Catalog, with over 1,250 illustrations. A true sourcebook of invention and inspiration.

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SHELTER NOTES: Touring South Park

It’s been a wonder to see. One of South Park’s oldest historic ranches (vacant for over fifteen years) is coming back to life. This past year has brought together a constellation of partnerships that will continue to create a truly unique land-study center for the Rockies. Buffalo Peaks Ranch will be home to a field station dedicated to connecting people of all ages to the lessons of land, water, and how we can all live lighter on the earth.

No partner has supplied us with such constant support and inspiration as has the University of Colorado Denver’s School of Architecture. Kat Vlahos’ graduate students are halfway through their second semester of design work at Buffalo Peaks Ranch. Their focus is sharpening, and it’s like a dream coming true to see their thoughtful visions taking shape.

In September, we all toured the ranch together. A glorious, cloudless, high mountain kind of day! We hope you enjoy some of the photos taken that day.

Above (click to enlarge!): 1) the students arrive at the main house porch, 2) one of the old bunkhouses (next on our “to be painted” list), 3) the expansive look up valley, as the students get a lay of the land.

Linda Balough, Director of the South Park National Heritage Area, led the students around the ranch, all the while supplying wonderful stories of the ranch’s early days.

Then we explored the clerestory barn — one of the student’s favorite structures.

The tour ended at noon, then it was off to our neighbor to the south, the Santa Maria Ranch (another future stop for the National Heritage Area):

Santa Maria owners George Meyers and Merrill Wilson hosted us for a wonderful, hardy & very much appreciated lunch. The Key Lime Pie couldn’t have been better!

After lunch, Merrill toured us through the 1870′s ranch house that they are slowly-but-surely renovating. (The Santa Maria Ranch has already been designated as a National Historic District).

And here we are at our last stop of the day, South Park’s High Plains Ranch. Owner Carol Carrington gave us a history-filled tour, while providing plenty of opportunities for the students to delve deeply into a variety of building styles:

You’ll definitely want to click & enlarge these photos of well-worn timbers!

Highland Cattle are the specialty of the High Plains Ranch. They are also a lot of fun to watch!

It quickly became clear that the architecture students were also animal lovers — ranchers at heart.

And here we are (or most of us) at the end of a remarkable day. We drove over Kenosha Pass on the way back to Denver, full of an inspiration derived from the past, while feeling a renewed excitement for what’s to come. We hope you can all visit South Park (& Buffalo Peaks Ranch) soon!

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Celebrating the Landscape of Home

As the Rocky Mountain Land Series heads into its ninth year, we’re excited to announce our Fall 2010 lineup of authors, artists, photographers, historians, and naturalists. Each Land Series presenter widens our appreciation of the stories behind our age-old relationship to the land, and for that we are extremely grateful! (You can find the entire Fall schedule listed below).

The new season starts on September 30th, as Craig Childs discusses his new book Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession (pictured above). The Land Series has been lucky enough to host Craig Childs before, and this new book may be his best yet!

It’s hard to think of a more wide-ranging, knowledgeable student of the American West than Dan Flores. Dan will discuss his two most recent books, the Twentieth Anniversary edition of his classic of the southern plains, Caprock Canyonlands, and Visions of the Big Sky: Painting and Photographing the Northern Rocky Mountain West.

This fall’s schedule is a good example of the wide diversity of Land Series topics. Here’s three upcoming authors who, in their own way, tell the twin stories of people and the land: Walter Echo-Hawk’s In the Courts of the Conqueror: The 10 Worst Indian Law Cases Ever Decided (for more on Walter Echo-Hawk, please visit our earlier post), Walter Borneman’s Rival Rails: The Race to Build America’s Greatest Transcontinental Railroad, and Jack Turner’s Landscapes on Glass: Lantern Slides for the Rainbow Bridge–Monument Valley Expedition (there’s more on this little known expedition on our earlier post).

Why should birder’s have all the fun? Robert Michael Pyle embarked on his own Big Year, as many obsessed birders have done. Sighting butterflies was Pyle’s goal, but along the way he has (like Edwin Way Teale before him) written an insightful natural history spanning several regions.

A certain level of learned zaniness may ensue when artist Ray Troll returns to the Land Series with his new book Something Fishy This Way Comes (for proof of zany, check out this video from our earlier post, The Perfect Blend of Pancakes & Paleontology).

Jonathan Waterman returns as well — this time with National Geograpahic photographer Peter McBride, as they discuss The Colorado River: Flowing Through Conflict. Water will forever remain high on our list of Land Series topics!

And speaking of the power of the Colorado River, photographer Christoper Brown will be giving a powerpoint presentation on his new book Path of Beauty: Photographic Adventures in the Grand Canyon, full of wonderful images that elevate geologic layers to high art.

Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril is a book not to be missed. A panel of editors & contributors will join us in a loose town-hall format as we all come to grips with our obligations to the planet and to the future.

And there’s no more immediate ethical sphere than our relationship to food. Katherine Leiner has written a wonderful new book that highlights inspirational stories from across the country, Growing Food: The New Generation of Sustainable Farmers, Cooks, and Food Activists.

So PLEASE join us this Fall for the chance to meet the following authors!

ROCKY MOUNTAIN LAND SERIES Fall 2010

Thursday, September 30th, 7:30pm:

Craig Childs, author of
Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession

Friday, October 15th, 7:30pm:

Ray Troll, author of
Something Fishy This Way Comes: The Artwork of Ray Troll

Sunday, October 17th, 3:00pm:

Dan Flores, author of
Caprock Canyonlands and Visions of the Big Sky: Painting and Photographing the Northern Rocky Mountain West

Thursday, October 21st, 7:30pm:

Walter Borneman, author of
Rival Rails: The Race to Build America’s Greatest Transcontinental Railroad

Saturday, October 23rd, 2:00pm:

Katherine Leiner, author of
Growing Roots: The New Generation of Sustainable Farmers, Cooks, and Food Activists

Saturday, October 30th, 2:00pm:

Robert Michael Pyle, author of
Mariposa Road: The First Butterfly Big Year

Saturday, November 13th, 2:00pm:

The editors & contributors from
Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril

Saturday, November 20th, 2:00pm:

Jack Turner, author of
Landscapes on Glass: Lantern Slides for the Rainbow Bridge–Monument Valley Expedition

Monday, November 29th, 7:30pm:

Christopher Brown, author of
Path of Beauty: Photographic Adventures in the Grand Canyon

Saturday, December 4th, 2:00pm:

Walter Echo-Hawk, author of
In the Courts of the Conqueror: The 10 Worst Indian Law Cases Ever Decided

Date & Time TBA:

Peter McBride & Jonathan Waterman, authors of
The Colorado River: Flowing Through Conflict

All Land Series events will take place at the Tattered Cover’s Historic LoDo Book Store (16th & Wynkoop in lower downtown Denver). For more information visit the Tattered Cover’s event page. Each program is FREE of charge — truly a wonderful opportunity for lifelong learners of all ages!

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High Creek Fen: Both a Glacial Remnant & Biologic Hot Spot

We continue to explore the varied landscape of South Park — the future home of the Rocky Mountain Land Library. Recently we went on a field trip sponsored by the Colorado Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, spending an entire day at their High Creek Fen Preserve.

What’s a fen? Well by the end of the day (and with the expert guidance of TNC trip leader John Sanderson) we knew that this wild landscape was kept mucky by a constant groundwater flow. We also crouched low to identify several globally rare plant species, and several that can only be found in the great boreal north. In fact, High Creek Fen contains more rare plant species than any other wetland known in Colorado.

As much as we learned about that glorious high mountain landscape, we came home anxious to know more. Luckily we came across an incredibly informative website, The aapa mire. Much of what follows is from Joe Rocchio’s post, High Creek Fen: A Pocket of Unique Beauty & Diversity in the Southern Rocky Mountains:

“After pulling out of Fairplay and driving south on Hwy. 285, a strange cluster of spruce trees appears….completely out of place amidst the short-grass steppe of South Park’s valley floor.“

“High Creek Fen emerges from the high montane steppe revealing an immense area of wet ground. Hummocks, pools, rivulets, and a creek; spruce trees, willows, bog birch, bulrushes, sedges, cottongrass, and aquatic plants all blanket the area.“

“Although early botanical explorers had visited the site, it is a bit astonishing that the significance of High Creek Fen as a refugia for glacial relics and haven for rare critters went unnoticed until 1990 when Dr. David Cooper recognized the unique character and biodiversity significance of this ecological Eden.” photo by Joe Rocchio

And here’s just a couple of the wetland plants that we saw on our day at the fen:

Carex viridula (green sedge) found along water tracks, sedge lawns, and at the base of hummocks. photo by Joe Rocchio

Packera pauciflora (few flowered ragwort) found in wet meadows. photo by Joe Rocchio

We found a shady spot for lunch, and heard more about the history of the fen from TNC’s John Sanderson. After David Cooper’s discovery of High Creek Fen’s globally important biodiversity, The Nature Conservancy led a campaign to protect it, eventually purchasing the property, while keeping it open for public tours and further study.

After lunch, John took us to the edge of one of the soggiest stretches of the fen. We found lots more aquatic plant species, along with rare insect inhabitants. (Joe Rocchio’s post reports that nine aquatic beetles have been found here not known elsewhere in Colorado).

And we’re happy to report that none of our field trip participants took a spill in this hummocky uncertain terrain!

Toward the end of the day, a storm system came out of the high peaks to the West, so it was off to the waiting cars, but not before taking one last look at a remarkable place:

We loved our day on High Creek Fen! And it’s exciting to think that the Land Library’s future home (Buffalo Peaks Ranch, pictured below) has a smaller, but still significant fen of its own!

Give yourself a treat and be sure to visit Joe Rocchio’s aapa mire website, along with his satellite site, The Geography of Home, full of stunning images of Western landscapes!

In thanks to Joe Rocchio’s partnership in this post, we close with these apt words from the aapa mire site: “Spending the day at High Creek Fen is an easy way to get lost — in time and space. There are very few wetlands, let alone fens, in the Southern Rocky Mountains as large and as diverse as this site. Although I have never been to the true boreal or arctic reaches of the North American continent, when I’m immersed in High Creek Fen’s wilderness I definitely feel as if I’m in those far northern landscapes — and very far from anything I have ever experienced.“

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Design Work is Underway at Buffalo Peaks Ranch

Last summer, the University of Colorado at Denver’s Graduate School of Architecture began designing what will soon be the Rocky Mountain Land Library’s future home at South Park’s Buffalo Peaks Ranch. The graduate students visited the ranch several times, analyzed the existing structures, and planned for the future ranch campus. The Land Library was thrilled at the student’s enthusiasm for the Buffalo Peaks Ranch project, and throughout the semester we were constantly challenged and surprised by the students’ thoughtful and innovative designs.

In the next few weeks, the UCD School of Architecture begins its second semester at the ranch, building on last year’s work, making some key decisions, and adding more detail to the emerging plan. We can’t wait to begin!

The UCD Studio Class is led by Kat Vlahos, a remarkable architect/educator passionate about the need for a comprehensive study of ranches in their relationship to the Western landscape.

And that’s where the class’ first site visit began: getting a broad view of the ranch’s landscape:

Here we are as Kat (in her red vest) gives us a lay of the land. Rising to the east is Reinecker Ridge — a starkly beautiful element of the landscape, that one student aptly referred to as a rolling wave.

The sky definitely set the tone that day. Someday, people will pass many a productive hour watching clouds from the Land Library’s porch!

Each structure was studied, measured and photographed. Here we are at one of the student’s favorite outbuildings: the Clerestory Barn.

The sturdy timbers of this barn excited the future architects, and they loved the play of light through the clerestory above.

Then it was off to the Steel & Concrete Barn — one of the most distinctive structures at the Ranch.

A cluster of students examine the concrete stalls that run north of the Steel & Concrete Barn — again, taking in the light effects, among other facets.

Measurements were taken for a full semester’s work ahead. (In the background you can see one of the old bunkhouses that we are hoping to scrape and paint soon!).

Here’s a few students taking measure of the mainhouse’s front porch. In the distance you can see the Clearstory Barn and the rolling wave of Reinecker Ridge.

It was a wonderful day at Buffalo Peaks Ranch, and it’s been inspiring to be part of Kat Vlahos’ ongoing work! The Land Library is extremely grateful for the chance to work side-by-side with the following UCD students — future architects all (and there at the Land Library’s creation): Kirsten Armbruster, Fabian Baumann, Erin Card, Kirsten Coe, Thomas Davis, Abigail Filanowski, Jennifer Foss, Laura Freeman, Brandon Fruhwirth, Craig Lawrence, Natalie Martin, Jamie Stadille, and Robert Stroud.

Stay tuned for updates on this fall’s semester!

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Scrape, Paint, Read

Last summer, Buffalo Peaks Ranch came roaring back to life. Over the course of three community workdays, more than 50 volunteers fixed fence, cleared brush, and scraped, primed, and painted the main ranch house (pictured below). It was certainly hard work, but given the beautiful South Park landscape, and buoyed by the feeling of common purpose, everyone came away from Buffalo Peaks Ranch newly energized.

Our thanks goes to all the hardy volunteers, and to our workday partners: the City of Aurora, Park County, Skidmore College, and the South Park Archaeological Project.

We are loving these early days of the Land Library’s development — full of satisfying work and plenty of opportunites to bring people together. The only downside of this past summer has been a flood of necessary tasks that made ranch work an impossibility. But the good news is that this summer’s necessary groundwork sets the stage for a vigorous return to Buffalo Peaks Ranch next season.

Among other priorities, there’s two wonderful old bunkhouses in a sad state of repair. Think scraping, think painting, think good food and even better company. All under the glorious South Park skies!

Here’s some fun highlights from last summer’s workdays:

Even Tom Sawyer would get excited by this sight, grab a brush and start painting!

But first we needed to meticulously scrape the mainhouse — a structure that hasn’t seen a drop of paint for over 25 years.

Needless to say, Safety Is First. Here is the co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Land Library making sure her nephew doesn’t tilt the wrong way.

Our third workday may have been the most dramatic of all. We had both brilliant sun and pitch-black clouds. More than a few times our painting crew could be seen gazing far up valley as the next weather system moved in. (Be sure to CLICK & ENLARGE the thumbnails above for a fun slide show of South Park’s changeable skies!).

Thankfully, the sun finally prevailed, as we all put finishing touches on the great work that had been accomplished all summer long:

We were lucky enough to have many dogs at all our workdays. They seemed to love the old ranch smells, and always ended their day happy but exhausted.

Everyone pitched in with all they had. It was a wonder to see, and something we’ll always remember and treasure.

And so the old ranch house receives its last finishing touch (before the roof job to come!).

But not before Beth Wood (workday veteran) makes friends with Buffalo Peaks Ranch resident guard-llama. And pointing to the future, you’ll see in the distance one of those old bunkhouses that so badly needs rescue next summer. We can’t wait, and we hope you can join us!

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Books Come to Buffalo Peaks Ranch

Many of you are aware of the Rocky Mountain Land Library’s plans to establish a residential land-study center at Buffalo Peaks Ranch, an unused historic ranch set in the high mountain grasslands of Colorado’s South Park. Over the next few months we hope to write more on our progress at the ranch. The University of Colorado’s School of Architecture is into its second year of design work at Buffalo Peaks Ranch, and we’ve also hosted a number of volunteer days, full of fun and hard work, all the while surrounded by a one-of-a-kind Western landscape. We’ll be reporting on all of this, and more!

But for now, here’s a quick “slide show” marking the arrival of the first few Land Library books to Buffalo Peaks. More than 20,000 volumes will follow, but for a recent public tour we lined the main house’s porch with less than a hundred books (pictured above) — all representative of the Land Library’s diverse collection.

Please take a quick glimpse, and we hope you enjoy. And you can click to enlarge, which will get you up close to all the titles on the shelves!

A tiny cluster, but containing books on Mountain Men, Platte River ecology, trout biology, three volumes of Thoreau’s Journals, along with The Lost Pathfinder: Zebulon Montgomery Pike by W. Eugene Hollon (Pikes Peak rises directly east of South Park!), and Cutthroat: Native Trout of the West by Patrick Trotter.

Dignity and beauty and meaning are given to our lives when we see far enough and wide enough, when we see the forces that minister to us, and the natural order of which we form a part. — John Burroughs

A loose coalition of raptors, beavers, A Literary History of the American West, The Ecology of Running Waters, prairie dogs, cowboy poetry, the Southern Cheyenne, The Voice of the Coyote, and Forest Fires (Buffalo Peaks Ranch is just west of the Hayman Fire site — the largest wildfire in Colorado’s history).

Not to mention, Trout at Ten Thousand Feet. Why so many books on trout? Well, Buffalo Peaks Ranch lies on the banks of the South Platte River, critical headwaters for the Front Range, and home to many miles of Gold Medal trout streams. A wonderful spot for anglers, and freshwater biologists too!

A porch potpourri, featuring books on frontier literature, The History of the U.S. Forest Service, Snow Ecology, Navajo weavers, and a truly inspirational book from the Trust for Public Land, Groundswell: Stories of Saving Place, Finding Community by Alix W. Hopkins.

Three touchstone books from the Land Library: Artists Land Nature by Mel Gooding & William Furlong (featuring the land art of Herman de vries, Chris Drury, Richard Long, and many others), Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness by Lisa M. Hamilton, Rivers & Birds by Merrill Gilfillan (a wonderful collection of essays from a great poet of the American grasslands).

A mix of agrarian essays, John McPhee on geology, mining in the west, Native American ethnobotany, Peattie’s Natural History of North American Trees, and Peter Wild’s Different Travellers, Different Eyes: Artists’ Narratives of the American West, 1820-1920.

For each home ground we need new maps, living maps, stories and poems, photographs and paintings, essays and songs. — Scott Russell Sanders

We hope Buffalo Peaks Ranch provides people a warm and vibrant space to slow down a notch, and find the opportunity to pursue the creative work of their own design.

To that end, we set out a small antique desk on the ranch house porch. A still-life of sorts, featuring books such as George Miksch Sutton’s inspirational To a Young Bird Artist, along with an open page from the published journals of one of the greatest young nature artists we know — Sherrie York.

Two Books & a Bowl of Jolly Ranchers: Maybe that says it all, but we should add, the Land Library loves the fact that pronghorn roam throughout South Park (check out our earlier post on pronghorn!), plus the fact that Buffalo Peaks Ranch is a short trek away from the world-class fossil site at Florissant National Monument. The natural & cultural heritage of central Colorado is incredibly rich!

And so the day ended, as all good days do, with plenty of melons and lots of good books. But stay tuned for more updates on Buffalo Peaks Ranch!

Buffalo Peaks Ranch, along the Middle Fork of the South Platte River, with the long valley leading to Mount Silverheels.

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