Profiles in Forest Restoration

The Bar NI Ranch

by Kristen Spinning

There are many stunningly beautiful places in Colorado to visit, yet one of my favorite drives has been to rattle along the few dirt county roads in and around Stonewall. The valley and its surroundings are mostly comprised of large private ranches with limited public access, so my tours have been limited to the confines of my car. It is an area without glitz, it is miles away from lattes or art galleries or T-shirt shops. Instead, it is a place of quiet beauty. The mountains surround you like a comfy old armchair. The great stone formation that rises abruptly from the valley floor and gives this place its name, is like a wall for nature to hang its many paintings upon. Elk are often seen in the long, wide, grass filled valleys, bears roam the forest and streams sparkle as they tumble down to meet the Purgatoire.

The stone wall that gives the town its name is a rocky shelf pushed into a vertical formation from tectonic pressure during the formation of the Rocky Mountains.
One of the large ranches in Stonewall is the Bar NI. Comprising 36,000 acres, it sprawls south and west of Highway 12 to the Sangres. The entrance to the Bar NI lies just west of the knife of stone that crosses Highway 12. It is owned by the Cabot Family of Boston, and operates as a private retreat and guest ranch for the family, its corporate partners and their guests. The Cabots have a long history in Stonewall, having leased the ranch since the 1940’s. In the mid 80’s, they were able to purchase it from CF&I. Being conservation oriented, they soon placed an conservation easement on the property which would protect it from future development. However, as time went on, they learned, like so many both large and small acreage property owners, that conservation is an ongoing process, and it is only one component to a healthy environment. It is a process that requires education, research, and a whole lot of work. The Cabots' commitment to conservation on the Bar NI, and to community service has spawned numerous collaborative programs, educational opportunities, partnerships, the formation of the Culebra Range Community Coalition, the Bar NI Community Services Foundation, and will soon launch another foundation, the Purgatorie Valley Foundation, with a focus on environmental education for young people.
On a brilliant late summer day, I spent some time with Tom Perry, Bar NI’s general manager and driving force behind these efforts, talking about forest health restoration, the challenges facing land owners who take it on, and the future of conservation in general. Winding along the mile and a half of private road to the ranch house, I immediately got the sense that this was someplace special. Pastoral and secluded, anchored and protected by the towering ridge of stone, tension melted away with each rotation of the wheels. Enormous ponderosas dotted the landscape. They were widely spaced--healthy forest spacing I noted. Scattered stands of gambel oak with thick stout trunks stood as islands of habitat for birds, squirrels and deer. The oak was not the straggly tangled mass of runty stems like that which I perpetually battle on my property. I could like oak like this. The ranch’s lodging and headquarters is a neat compound of log sided buildings. With ponds, horses grazing, old western artifacts, and tumbling streams, every direction offered a photographic opportunity, and I wished I had packed my watercolors for it seemed perfect for a little en plein air painting. But alas, on that day, my mission was to learn about Bar NI’s work toward restoring healthy forest.

Dueling Creek, the middle branch of the middle fork of the Purgatorie River, flows past the lodge at the Bar NI.

 Tom and his wife Linda have been running the ranch for the last 14 years. That meant a full, if not over full schedule of managing the daily ranch operations, staff, horses, hospitality for the guests, cooking and taking on the initiatives for not only forest health on the ranch, but educating the community at large to the needs of forest restoration. Now Tom and Linda are training their replacements so that they can step back from the day to day operations of the ranch, and focus solely on the conservation and education mission. Through the new Purgatorie Valley Foundation, area kids will have the opportunity for experiential learning in the areas of conservation, ecology and wildlife with an aim of developing the next generation of stewards.

Forest thinning and restoration work at the Bar NI began in earnest about 5 and a half years ago. It was then that Tom organized a Forest Health Workshop. It was three days of speakers, field trips and panel discussions. In addition to the ranch’s neighbors and property owners from round the region, about 20 members of the Cabot family attended. The event lead off with Chris Pague, Director of Ecology of The Nature Conservancy, with the topic “Are our Forests Healthy, and if Not, What Do We Do”. It is difficult for environmentally focused people to think about cutting down trees, but as Tom said, “When the guardian of environmental health said point blank that our forests are overly dense and therefore unhealthy, it really gets through and ears began to open.” Out of that workshop was born the Culebra Range Community Coalition. CRCC’s focus has been on educating property owners on the importance of forest thinning, and trying to discover ways to make it economically feasible. “There is currently some grant money available for cost sharing on forest thinning and fire mitigation work,” Tom explained, “but that is not sustainable. The long term solution is to develop some market value for the forest products you are taking out.” He added, “ it doesn't have to make people rich, but at least cover the cost.” To that end, CRCC last year commissioned an inventory of the forest in the area, including all the way to Trinidad with some of the sample areas on the SFTR. With that data, entrepreneurs can begin the process of developing viable businesses to utilize the local forest products. “The post and pole place in Raton is a start, but they are pretty well supplied with material from Vermejo. We need something local.” He also sited that transportation costs impact the economics of any market for the forest products.
Tom Perry is a strong believer in building coalitions. Bar NI works closely with The Nature Conservancy, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Colorado Cattlemen's Association, Colorado Division of Wildlife, Colorado State Forest Service as well as other land owners. He acts as a facilitator between land owners and the various organizations and resources, helping to determine which organization may be the best fit for that land owner’s needs. The Bar NI hosts an annual Land Owner’s Conservation Dinner each October where neighbors and conservation partners can get to know one another. He is proud to add that a number of conservation easements have resulted from those gatherings. So often, ranch owners have been suspicious of outsiders telling them what to do on their land, but the Bar NI stands as an example of how constructive input from conservation organizations or state agencies can greatly enhance the land, habitat and wildlife.
One of Bar NI’s closest partners has been the Nature Conservancy. Using a scientific and research based approach, the Nature Conservancy has helped to evaluate the land and its needs, and outline strategies for improvement. They then follow the progress with careful monitoring. On one project, The Nature Conservancy helped the Bar NI institute a grazing program. Cattle grazing often sends shivers down the spine of environmentalists, but The Nature Conservancy concluded that a rotational grazing plan for an area of the ranch that had become stagnant with old and decadent grasses would be highly beneficial for restoring a diverse grassland. To monitor the success, they went so far as counting stems of grass in sections before and after, and excluded areas from grazing for comparison to the grazed areas. The rotational grazing took place over about four years. The result is that valley has been cleared out and restored, and now the elk love it, the DOW loves it, and the Nature Conservancy has another example of success to show to other land owners.
The most visible of Bar NI’s forest restoration endeavors has also been greatly aided by its collaborative partners. Over the past five years, they have been thinning the forest on their border along Highway 12. Beginning a couple miles west of Stonewall, and now stretching for about two and a half miles as the road winds and climbs toward Monument Lake, the forest along the road has been thinned and the under story as been cleared. CK Morey, Colorado State Forest Service District Forester, made recommendations for the project and input from DOW and the Nature Conservancy helped in determining the best ways to improve wildlife habitat. When thinning first began on this project, many who traveled that road were shocked and dismayed that “all the trees were being cut down.” As time, education and the restoration went on, the success of the efforts became apparent to even the strongest of critics.

Then, in November of 2005, the most dramatic part of the restoration plan took place. With help and guidance from the Nature Conservancy, Forest Service, DOW and local fire departments, a prescribe burn was conducted. The purpose of the 23 acre burn was to further clear out the under story that hand thinning alone can not do.

A large sign on the side of the road at the meadow acknowledges the help and support of all the collaborators. Though trespassing into the burn area is not allowed, one can enjoy the view from the road.
Fire is an important component to the forest ecology of this region. Decades of suppressing even the smallest of blazes has contributed to the decline in forest health to the point where now we see that the smallest blaze transforms into a major event overnight as it consumes brush choked hills and thick stands of weakened trees. By carefully controlling a burn under the right conditions, it can rebalance that part of the ecology equation. In this case fire also revitalized the existing meadow in the burn area. The Nature Conservancy has been monitoring the effects of the burn over the winter, and into this summer by conducting detailed surveys of the plants and grasses that are rebounding in both the grass and woodland areas.
To conclude my tour of the Bar NI, I had the opportunity to visit the burn area. If Monet were to have painted a Colorado Forest Scene, this would be it. Idyllic, inviting, swaths of color spread across the meadow like daubs of paint. Yellow, lavender, greens and golds, a splash of red here, and a stroke of white there, as the meadow was filled with wild flowers. We waded through the meadow in grass that was nearly waist high. The wash of grass was brushed up the hill into the thinned woodland where the fire had reduced oak brush and forest litter to nutrients for a fresh blush of new, diverse growth. I did not need to be a Nature Conservancy researcher to conclude that this was a much greater diversity of plant life than surrounding areas that had not been restored. It was late in the day so the sunlight cut between the trees casting long shadows and turning the grass seed heads to shimmering gold and silver. Blue Grama grasses winked their fringed “eye lashes” with the breeze. Another benefit is that the fire seems to have reduced the grow back of oak in favor or other plants, ground covers and deer and elk loving forbes.

The meadow was painted with wildflowers and a diversity of grasses and forbes as a result of the prescribed burn.

From Hwy. 12 looking west into the restoration area it is open with a healthy tree spacing.

 This thinning and subsequent prescribed burn project is a dramatic example of forest restoration and a wonderful teaching tool, since anyone who drives along that section of Highway 12 can’t help to notice that one side of the road is an open forest with a diversity of ground cover bursting with life, and the other side is thick and impenetrable. The Bar NI will continue to work on this and other restoration projects. Additionally, Tom Perry, the Cabot Family and their conservation partners are committed to educate others on how they can take an active part in their own land’s health restoration and maintenance. Tom’s other passion is sculpture, and that is not surprising. There is a strong correlation between shaping a mound of clay to bring forth a work of art, and sculpting a forest to reveal nature’s art.

On the east side of Hwy 12 is another ranch where no restoration has taken place. The forest is overly dense and prone to disease.

Shafts of sunlight streak through the trees brushing the grasses with gold.