Sunday, 05 July 2009 19:05

As a follow up to the Aspen Historical Article in the June Newsletter, we're proud to bring you the continued history of Snowmass Falls Ranch provided by Marj Perry, one of the current owners.  It is a beautiful tribute to family and love of the land. The previous article can be read here.

Snowmass Falls Ranch sits at the end of the road on Snowmass Creek. Bob and Ditty Perry bought the ranch in 1943 from Kate Lindvig. Kate Lindvig emigrated from Denmark in the 1890’s. Intended as a mail order bride for a Nebraska man, Kate changed her mind after seeing Nebraska. Within a few years, she was running her own boarding house in Aspen. A miner boarding with Kate exchanged his property for meals in lieu of cash payment and Kate became the owner of a homestead on Snowmass Creek. She then homesteaded an adjacent property, and bought the Tandy Place in 1898, followed by the Pennell Ranch in 1915. Jointly, she named these four parcels Snowmass Falls Ranch. Kate raised hay, potatoes, and oats. She owned 80 head of Hereford cattle and had a forest permit. She hauled two head of cattle a week to Aspen by wagon or sled, selling locally grown grass fed beef.  In addition, Kate rented horses to sightseers. Once silver collapsed, Kate fed out of work miners in exchange for labor and in 1925 she opened a guest ranch. The miners helped her build small cabins to accommodate the guests and they helped with ranch work. Old photographs depict cabins no longer in existence today. Kate packed people into Snowmass Lake, sometimes making three trips a day, totaling 52 miles. She built a hydro system and many cabins had electric lights.

As a child, Ruth Brown Perry (Ditty), spent her summers in Aspen. Her father, D.R.C. Brown, came to Aspen in July of 1880 over Taylor Pass by wagon. It took two weeks from the summit of Taylor Pass to reach Aspen as the wagons had to be unloaded and taken apart many times while the gear was packed down steep bluffs and the mules led around. Then the wagons were reassembled until they reached the next steep drop. Aspen was a mining camp, newly started, in Ute territory. Brown settled in Aspen where he became the head of the bank and was responsible for building the power plant on Castle Creek.   Brown was instrumental in building the road over Independence Pass.

DRC liked to take packtrips in the Aspen area and Ditty recalls meeting Kate when she rode to Snowmass Lake. She would start at Snowmass Falls Ranch with her father and brothers. Originally, the trail was very rough and her father sent a crew ahead to open sections with dynamite and saws to remove down timber. The Brown’s hauled a rowboat in by packhorse for fishing at the lake.

Ditty lived in Denver in the winter, near Bob. Bob and Ditty married in 1940, and soon began ranching in Carbondale. Bob had both a registered herd of Herefords and a commercial herd and he needed more summer pasture. Ditty remembered Snowmass Falls Ranch as a girl and they thought it would make an ideal spot for a registered herd as there would be no neighboring bulls around to challenge the breeding program. By the time Bob and Ditty heard Kate was selling the ranch in 1943, Joe Grange had an offer on it. However, Grange changed his mind due to complications and sold the contract to Bob and Ditty for the additional cost of two horses.

Snowmass Falls Ranch, or Kate’s as we called it, has been a part of our family’s lives. Ditty would pack the car with sleeping bags, food, 7 kids, and several dogs and we would head to “cow camp.” The upper Snowmass Creek road was a single lane with grass growing between the tire tracks. George Higgenbotham tended camp: irrigating, fencing, and hauling salt on the forest permit from 1951 until 1996, two years before he died. He lived in a cabin with a wood cook stove and hauled water in a bucket from the spigot near his door. When the Perry family arrived, George’s solitude was instantly broken by yammering, excited children, barking dogs, and general chaos. He could retreat to a small bedroom, but the family shared his kitchen space and the girls slept on the floor of the “front room.” Bob and Ditty slipped away after dinner to a small cabin nearby and the boys claimed another cabin. George never complained about the invasion. He always had bologna sandwiches on Holsum bread with Miracle Whip to share. In later years, he’d offer warm beer (limited refrigerator space) when we showed up. When we left, the deer returned to his doorway and he could enjoy the wrens on his low windowsill. He spent his evenings thumbing through National Geographics and reading Louis Lamour westerns.

In 1963, Ditty built a larger cabin up the hill. It had running water and a shower that was supplied with hot water from the cook stove. The other cabins were for summer visitors and hunters. The cabin Kate lived in became the barn, possibly the only wall papered barn on the creek.  

Bob and Ditty ran registered cows at Kate’s from 1944 until Bob died in 2006. Every June we moved the cows up Highway 82 and along Snowmass Creek, returning home again in the fall. We pastured the cows at neighbors for two nights as the cattle drive took three days. The cows would string out along the road followed by kids on horseback, with Bob and other cowboys keeping an eye on the move. Ditty would arrive by car with a picnic lunch. Eventually, we had to truck the cattle in the spring, but we continued driving them home until 1990. We avoided Highway 82 by using East Sopris Creek and the railroad grade along the Roaring Fork, now a bike path.

Bob and Ditty had a forest permit as well as the private pasture. At different times, their children and grandchildren spent days riding, hauling salt or gathering cattle in the fall from the high country. The forest permit ends when elk season starts and we still try to get all cattle accounted for by opening day, but are rarely successful. One of the best jobs of the year is riding around the mountains looking for a missing cow or two. With luck, we stop for lunch on a sunny southfacing slope covered in fescue. The horses can graze while we eat lunch and scan the hillside with binoculars. Some days that were cold and wet as well. Often the sun had set and the first stars glowed as we dragged down the trail. When we could see the cabin light, we knew we were getting closer to a warm fire and supper.

Both Bob and Ditty were avid hunters. There weren’t any elk on Snowmass Creek in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The first ones arrived in the 1960’s and it was exciting to spot them. Hunting meant rising in the dark to catch horses and saddle. Riding out in the cold dawn, we’d reach the dark timber with the sun. We’d ride along on steep, narrow, frozen trails listening and watching, while reveling over a few lingering aspen leaves and wiggling our toes to stay warm. Some days, we only found tracks. Other days, the elk would bugle and we would try to site them in a clearing.

Bob followed in Kate’s footsteps and packed people into Snowmass Lake. Some groups wanted unpractical items for their week long stay. One group wanted an organ hauled in and another insisted on packing one hundred pounds of popcorn. Bob packed several large groups to the lake including the Appalachian Mountain Club and the Colorado Mountain Club. With numerous family members and the Fender family, he packed the Sierra Club on two lengthy wilderness trips covering much of the Maroon Bells wilderness. Twenty seven horses and mules were used. Fortunately one horse packed Bill Fender’s sheepherder tent that proved very popular when it rained for 10 of the 14 days on the second Sierra Club trip. The horses were not always content to stay in the high country and would occasionally attempt to head home. Everyone had to scramble to head them off, leaving chores unfinished and naps interrupted. If it was dinner time, food was left on the plates.

In the winter, family members skied in to shovel roofs. It’s easier today as we can drive to the county pipe over Snowmass Creek. Historically it was a long haul in followed by a big day of shoveling up to six feet of snow from all the cabin roofs.
In 1990, Bob and Ditty’s grandson, Matt Turnbull and his wife, Pam, bought Doug McClean’s outfitting business. They took people out for day rides, over nights, and week long packtrips.  They set up hunting camps in the fall and guided hunters. Matt pastured horses on the ranch and helped George who was aging. Many family members helped in this enterprise and Bob enjoyed it even though his days of long rides were over.

Matt sold the outfitting business in 2005. Then various other grandchildren became caretakers and Bob and Ditty’s children continue to help with the labor. Cattle are grazing the pastures today, but they are trucked from Carbondale.
Bob is buried at Kate’s, and Ditty, at 90, still drives up the creek to enjoy the scenery and sit on a bench dedicated to Bob. The family has grown over the years from a family with 7 children to an extended family of almost a hundred. Most members have been able to spend time at Kate’s. There have been weddings, parties, and memorials. Great grandchildren play in the creek, wade in the beaver ponds, and pick flowers. Grandchildren arrive for family vacations and bow season. The porch is inviting at the cabin, the fishing is relaxing and provides an easy supper, and the chance to get away is priceless. It is very similar to how Kate Lindvig left it; a quiet spot where everyone can reconnect to what is important, to nature, a good book, or a fishing pole, and some good hard manual labor. With the river in earshot and alpen glow on Daly, Snowmass Falls Ranch is a treasured place.

The Abundant Life, Book II, Ruth Brown Perry, 2006
Gladyce Christiansen, The Aspen Times, 7/31/75
David Robinson Crocker Brown, A Rocky Mountain Legacy, by Senator C.S. Thomas, in The Abundant Life, Book I, Ruth Brown Perry.

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