While ranchers used the Toroweap valley seasonally in the early 1900s, the first year round homestead was the Lower Kent Ranch, built in 1927, located just north of the park.
On our way out of Tuweep/Toroweap we saw the evidence ranching in the past.
Some places older than others.
The Tuweep Valley stretches on for miles once out of the park and is still used as range land leased by the Bureau of Land Management.
14 comments:
You're taking me back to the western movies I watched as a child, and the western books I read for most of my life. Seeing your photos and reading your tutorial I feel those stories come to life. Thanks so much!
This looks like the wild, wild West!
Wow, Gaelyn;) what wild and rugged country. Thanks for the tour and explanation. Have a wonderful weekend. Blessings and hugs Jo
All those different colors in the scenery...just delightful! And the cows look so sweet. You and Mike sure do visit a lot of interesting places. :-)
Hey look at me everybody... I'm a cow, howdy howdy howdy! :)
It's a hard life out there for man and cattle alike.
From my first visit to the USA, Arizona was always the state I love most for its beauty and contrasts but I do not think I would want to start a ranch there for many reasons.
The cows look contented in your photograph.
We tend to romanticize 'wild west' settlements, but these folks were really brave and worked hard...uncertain, dangerous surroundings....and I think the women probably had it even harder....washing, scrubbing, making clothes, food....We are so spoiled now.
That would not have been an easy place to ranch or live. I have a great deal of respect for all the early settlers in the West.
Enjoyed the photos and commentrary, Gaelyn. Safe travels.
Kent? As in Clark Kent? Probably not. LOL.
We also have so much history involving farmers and the like right back to the early Khoesan herders moving around with the seasons to the Voortrekker moving away from the Cape Colony in the 1830's to find a land to call their own.
We've seen a lot of evidence of ranching on the north rim. Seems like a very dry area, easily overgrazed, and I'm sure that happened in many places.
i have hiked the north rim for ten years and once hiked just to the east of Toroweap Point in Tuckup Canyon.
yes there are cattle!
the only place we have been afflicted x ticks on a GC hike on either rim.
while taking a water break at tiny Cottonwood Spring we saw numerous ticks in no time but not at any other GC spring of the dozens below the rims where we have rested and watered.
the ranger said cows were fouling the small springs in the park so badly that they were shoting ferrel cows them from helicopters.
was that successful?
related or not i can't say for sure but seems that at all other tiny springs on the N Rim where cows have been gone for decades we don't notice ticks. used by desert bighorn sheep and a few mule deer they don't seem to hang around those springs and don't wallow and defecate in the pools but just take a sip and are gone.
this harsh delicate desert ecosystem seems to have faired poorly under the impact of outsider bovine overpopulation.
i wonder what has happened to the bighorn sheep population since their introduction? any idea?
i have seen none alive and only a single ram skull and bones below Powell Plateau's Dutton Point.
enjoy imensely the GC N Rim posts, and old friend.
steve
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