Bitterroot Ranch

05/17/2025

One of the maintenance guys we hired had a family situation come up, so he backed out. If anyone is interested in a maintenance position at the ranch this summer (ASAP - October 8th), please email Hadley— [email protected]. We would love to have another team member for the season!

11/06/2024

A beautiful video taken in September of the night sky at the ranch, taken by Jean Donny with his drone.

Ce sont les plus beaux ciels étoilés que j'ai pu voir, ici au Bitterroot Ranch dans le Wyoming.Je travaille encore pour améliorer le rendu de ces vidéos qui ...

09/18/2024

Wild September rainstorm led to some beautiful and eerie light on the trail rides this afternoon.

06/14/2024

We have a few spaces available in our upcoming Mindfulness with Horses Retreat August 11-18, led by Jennifer Cohen Harper. It’s a beautiful experience of connecting with the horses, with ourselves, and with each other.

Learn more at https://www.mindfulnesswithhorses.com/healing-with-horses-summer-retreat-aug/

04/24/2024

For those of you who have been wanting to hear Bayard’s story in his own voice, the audio version of his book, with Bayard narrating, has been released. He focused for months to get it accomplished, and it’s a wonderful result!

Fisherman, Rancher, Horseman, Spy: True Stories of a Life Well-Lived

04/21/2024

Spring at the ranch!

04/13/2024

We still have a few spaces left in one of our popular clinics: Reiki for Horses taught by Anna Twinney. June 2-9, beautiful spring at the ranch!

In the Reach Out To Horses Clinic with Anna Twinney students learn how all contact with horses is a form of communication and how to use it successfully.

03/30/2024

After a wait, the New FlyFisher show, featuring the ranch and Wind River fishing, is live. Check it out!

In this very special one-hour documentary video, Mark Melnyk explores the small streams and rivers of Wind River WY, and learns much about why this region is...

03/16/2024

From Bayard’s desk:

From Ghost Town to School Bus

Interestingly, a hundred years ago there was a "town" just three miles down the road from our ranch. It was called Duncan and when I bought the ranch it was still marked on the old gas station road maps. In the early 1900s there were about 40 people living in the upper part of our valley justifying a little one room school and a post office, but sadly neither bar nor bo****lo. When Duncan School began in the early 1900s few people had cars and the 50 mile trip to Dubois on horseback took a long day, made longer by having to open and close about 20 gates across the road. Now we just glide effortlessly over the cattle guards without thinking about it.

When the 1930s depression hit, many of the Scots had to leave. Marginal agricultural lands were no longer viable on a small scale with the advent of tractors and commercial fertilizers, but the school and post office had enough business to keep going until the mid 1950s. At that time mail deliveries began on what was then called the Duncan Route which stops where our mailbox is now three miles below the ranch. For a few years there was a school bus which came up that far, but by the 1960s there were no more children going to school above the Thunderhead Ranch.

We hired a wonderful couple, Bill and Billy Finley, about the time Richard was old enough for kindergarten. They had two daughters about his age so that suddenly we had three children who needed to get to school. At the same time a couple came to work at the Thunderhead Ranch, six miles down the road, and they had two more children. There was an Indian child living farther down the road who also needed to get to school. This made enough children to get the attention of the school district so they found a small school bus and made Billy the official driver. For years she drove the school bus from our ranch 17 miles down to the highway to meet the big school bus and then went back to pick them up in the afternoon. While the bus was running, we had some pretty fierce winters with lots of snow, but the county did a fantastic job of keeping the road open during all that time. They kept it pretty smooth too.

03/10/2024

From Bayard’s desk:

The Racc**n

It was the mid '80s and our finances were on a more solid basis so that Mel no longer had to cook and wrangle in our hunting camp while looking after an infant Richard. We had said farewell to our last group of hunters after a successful season, packed out the camp equipment and closed it down for the year. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself and felt I had earned a good rest. Mel was very glad to see me and hugged me warmly. BUT she said there was one more thing that had to be done.

The two great buildings we had at the ranch when I first bought it were the main lodge and the great old barn built in the '30s. The barn had a big chicken house attached which had several rooms and a wire enclosure all around and over it. Mel loves all animals and the house was now filled with chickens, peacocks, ducks, geese, turkeys and guinea fowl. The bad thing was that a large and voracious racc**n had found a way to get through the wire and massacre the poultry which he had done for several nights and had done again the night before. Mel told me I had to get my gun and a sleeping bag and lie in wait after dinner for the c**n to come so that I could shoot it and end its disastrous marauding.

After dinner I dutifully, if not enthusiastically, got my gun and a flashlight and tucking a sleeping bag under my arm I headed down toward the barn with my wonderful yellow Lab, Chrissy. We didn't have to wait because Chrissy started barking wildly and ran ahead to tackle a 30 lb. racc**n just getting ready for his dinner. They were locked in close combat and the fur was flying. I got my flashlight on them, but they were moving fast in close combat and going round and round in circles so that I was afraid to shoot for fear of hitting Chrissy. Finally I got an opportunity and whammed the racc**n with a killing shot. I rather hated to kill it, but couldn't see that I had much choice. It had given Chrissy a few wicked bites, but she was not seriously hurt and was very proud about her part in the combat.

03/04/2024

From Bayard’s desk.

From Chicken House to Equitours office:

Our Equitours International Horseback Riding Tours suddenly took off in a big way, greatly easing our financial situation. The first few years were limited to the trips in Kenya Mel and I could guide ourselves, but within a few years we had branched out and were doing a million dollars a year in sales. Billy, our amazing cook, and I handled it somehow on top of all the other things we were doing. It wasn't so bad in the winter, but in the summer Billy and I were each doing the work of 3 people. That was tough enough, but the other problem was that we had no physical location to use for a headquarters. The guest cabins and the main lodge were needed all summer and the only free building was an old chicken house. This had somehow been left on the side of the hill near the little cabin where Mel and I lived.

In those days of the 1980s the only means of rapid communications we had with our outfitters worldwide was telex so we put that machine, our computer and our files and desks into the chicken house and kept it warm with an electric heater. A few years later, as the business continued to grow, we bought a house in Dubois to use as an office and now three ladies handle the business from there. In those early years we had never heard of a website and depended on a costly, yearly color brochure for advertising. We embraced the Internet as soon as possible, but many of our clients did not, so we had to continue the expensive brochure for several years. How times have changed since the days when I had to go to the Thunderhead on horseback to make a phone call!

Now we have fixed up the chicken house as a one person guest cabin with a bathroom and studio window which has a magnificent view of the mountains. It seems like yesterday to me, but it is ancient history now.

02/28/2024

From Bayard’s desk:

The Arrival of Telephones

By 1980, getting access to a telephone had become a vital necessity. The French business had been one of our mainstays, but now the election of a Socialist government under Mitterrand decreed that expenses paid in foreign currency must be limited and would not allow Frenchmen to spend enough for a holiday with us. After huge efforts and with the help of the Public Service Commission we had forced the local phone company to put a line through to us which was a huge advantage in booking American guests. Many of them had been put off by the difficulty of communication. Unfortunately the line had only gotten as far as the Thunderhead Ranch, six miles below us when the wicked winter of 1980/'81 set in stopping finishing the line until spring.

All was not lost because they did give us a telephone we could use temporarily attached to the entrance gate of the Thunderhead Ranch six miles below us. Then at least we had our own phone and it was much closer than Dubois. The trouble was that when the winter really began in December the road between us and the Thunderhead was closed most of the time and the County seldom plowed it. The mail carrier often could not deliver the mail to our mailbox three miles from the ranch. When I could drive my car to the Thunderhead gate I could get the phone inside and sit comfortably while I made my calls and picked up messages. When the road was impassable I had to saddle up a horse and ride down to the Thunderhead gate, hitching up the horse and sitting on the fence to make my calls. As you can imagine, I tried hard to make those calls eloquent.

On one memorable occasion I was sitting in my car talking on the phone to a friend when one of the Thunderhead hands came around the corner going a little too fast on a very slippery road and skidded uncontrollably into my car. He was going slowly by that time, but nevertheless hit my car with quite a whack making me give a mighty yell. I had to reassure my confused friend that nothing serious had happened.