Overview

The Zapata Ranch, owned by The Nature Conservancy, is one of the most diverse and spectacular places imaginable. This working ranch itself is over 100,000 acres and is part of a 400,000-acre landscape made up of the Great Sand Dunes Park and Preserve which borders it on its eastern flank and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains – studded with snow caped 14,000 peaks that also border the property. Over half the ranch has been set aside as one undivided pasture for a wild herd of bison that blacken the land when they amass into one herd. The meadows, wetlands, creeks and rolling sand hills create a wildlife sanctuary that has been called the Rocky Mountain Serengeti because of the sheer number of wildlife: large mammals, birds, and insect species. Ranch grazing practices are used to enhance the ecosystem and preserve the diversity of wildlife.

This scenic working cattle and bison guest ranch specializes in providing services and programs that all revolve around personal service, privacy and hands on learning about nature, horseback riding and ranching. It takes pride in customizing programs to fit each individual or group’s need: horseback riding, family and corporate retreats, ranch experience, photo safaris, bison tours, wildlife viewing or hiking.

The most popular program takes guests out to work side by side with cowboys and cowgirls in a real life cattle and bison ranching operation. Trips for amateur and professional photographers who want to inundate themselves in wildlife and spectacular scenery are common as well and use horseback, guided hikes and motorized vehicles to go out on photo safaris to photograph the bison herd, wildlife, cowboys or sand dunes and mountains. Special trips out to view wildlife or follow the bison herd around are very popular as well. Perhaps the best use of the facilities and resources are for exclusive retreats for groups (families or corporate) who want complete privacy and comfort in an exotic location with lots of activities for breaks in the meetings, days off or for spouses not involved in the meetings. Family retreats are one of the most special times everyone.

The Zapata specializes in providing guests with the opportunity to spend the day working side by side with the ranch hands herding cattle, minding the bison, gathering pastures, checking the bison fence, irrigating, working in the shop, branding cattle – whatever is going on that day. These events are not staged for visitors. Every day is different. Guests learn about bison and cattle, grazing, conservation, horsemanship, managing the ecosystem, wild life, or anything else that is of interest. Guests can participate in this program to the degree that they wish during their stay, or indulge in any of the other activities that are available.

This landscape is a Mecca for photographers. There are opportunities to spend the day with the cowboys and cowgirls who are tending to the cattle and bison and doing the myriad of things that need to be done on a ranch. At any one time of the year horses are being gathered, cattle are being trailed from one pasture to another: in the spring there are brandings, and at any one time during the year, long cattle drives across the ranch. In early winter the bison are gathered into one huge herd and brought into the corral. Photographers can be placed in opportune places during any of these activities for getting the best photographs possible. Or, if guests want to go on excursions to take photos of the bison out in the pasture, the sand dunes, wildlife, alpine scenes, trips are available to where ever guests want to go. Excursions are made on horseback, foot or by motorized vehicle. No matter where guests choose to go, they will be able to inundate themselves in some of the most spectacular scenery, abundant wildlife and real life ranch activities and take pictures home that could be taken in few other places in the world.

Wildlife species range from minute that isn’t found anywhere else on earth, to gigantic to immense herds. Bison on this ranch are managed as a native species; studies are being conducted about their interaction with other wildlife and ecosystem. The San Luis Valley is the home to a herd of approximately 7,000 elk. Part of this herd uses the ranch during part of the year because of its rich habitat. In one day it is possible to see hundreds upon hundreds of bison and elk, coyote, deer, antelope and a whole range of hawks and falcons and countless shorebirds. In March, the whooping crane migration permeates the entire San Luis Valley with thousands upon thousands of birds. These animals are found around the lakes and out in the meadows feeding and carousing around. At certain times of the year, the lakes are full of water fowl and shore birds. There is a bird blind set up on one of the larger lakes which facilitates watching the wildlife around the lake.

The Zapata has lodge facilities with 15 rooms with private baths, full service dinning, two dining areas – indoor and outdoor, and state of the art conference facilities. This historic lodge is tucked away in a forest of cotton wood trees at the base of Mt. Blanca, a 14,000-foot peak, ten minutes away from the Great Sand Dunes Park and Preserve. Many locals do not even know that this treasure exists. All programs and trips are based out of this lodge. Trips to explore the 50,000 acres of sand dunes piled as high as 700 feet, Zapata falls, a water fall cascading 50 feet off a cliff into a narrow mist filled canyon, alpine trail heads pointing the way to Colorado alpine meadows leading up to Mount Blanca, are all within ten minutes from the lodge. Fly fishing and river rafting are activities that ranch staff can coordinate with guests who are up to traveling by car to these locations.

Whatever guests choose to do, days will be filled to the brim, and at the end of the day, they will have a very comfortable room at the lodge and be replenished with a delicious home cooked meal, prepared especially by the ranch cook.