Groundhog Glade Conservation Area

In an effort to deliver maximum conservation results in our service area, Montezuma Land Conservancy underwent a community strategic planning process. One of the outcomes of this process was the creation of program areas to focus our work.

The private lands in the Groundhog-Glade area of central Dolores County is one of our identified program areas. This region contains high conservation potential due to the following:

1. Remoteness and uniqueness of the region
2. Presence of large unfragmented parcels
3. Connectivity of private parcels to surrounding public lands
4. Presence of growing landowner constituency interested in private land conservation
5. Presence of habitat for sensitive species including: lynx, CDOW Tier 1 and 2 species, and globally imperiled rare endemic plants
6. Importance of the area to big game and mammal production and movement

The Groundhog Glade Area is located in the San Miguel/Dolores High Desert Plateau Colorado Conservation Partnership (CCP) priority landscape and is a geographic focus area for the Montezuma Land Conservancy. Situated between the Dolores River Canyon and San Miguel River watershed, and where the eastern edge of the Colorado Plateau meets the uplifted San Juan Mountains, elevations here rise from 7500’ to over 12,000’ at the summits of Groundhog and Lone Cone mountains. This isolated landscape encompasses open meadows, shale and sandstone outcrops, rolling hills, mesas and mountains, and numerous creeks and canyons flowing into the Dolores River. The varied terrain creates an exceptional array of habitat types supporting high levels of biodiversity.

Within this landscape—and almost completely surrounded by public lands—lie approximately 90,000 acres of contiguous private lands that are used primarily for summer pasture, hunting, and recreation. These fee lands are, for the most part, large undeveloped parcels that were homesteaded in the early 1900’s for cattle and sheep summer range. This block of private lands has retained its natural and scenic character due to continued ranching operations and the lack of year round access to the area. Consequently, these fee lands provide critical habitat for big game and a multitude of non-game species; and they provide panoramic views for visitors to neighboring Lone Mesa State Park, Groundhog and Lone Cone State Wildlife Areas, the San Juan National Forest, and Bureau of Land Management lands. Five major subdivisions have a foothold in this area and plans to open the access road in the winter pose a major threat to the undeveloped nature of this remote landscape.

Montezuma Land Conservancy has permanently protected more than 16,000 acres of working ranches and prime habitat with conservation easements in this area. The ranches provide key summer (and in one case winter) range for subsistence cow-calf operations as well as leased pasture. In addition, the ranches are prime habitat for one of Colorado’s largest elk herds, including important calving grounds; Canada lynx, black bear, mountain lion and other wide-ranging mammals; spawning Colorado River Cutthroat Trout; more than 50 species of greatest conservation need as determined by the Colorado Division of Wildlife; and endemic and globally imperiled rare plants. Each ranch is contiguous to large expanses of public lands—providing key habitat connectivity at a landscape scale and important scenic vistas for area hunters and recreationalists. Ivins Ranch is an example of our work in this area.

Ivins Ranch

In December of 2010, Montezuma Land Conservancy took advantage of a special opportunity to build on the momentum of the Groundhog and Crescent Ranch conservation easements and further landscape-scale conservation with a 6,700-acre conservation easement on the Ivins Ranch. Identified as a high priority by the Montezuma Land Conservancy and Colorado Conservation Partnership (CCP), Ivins Ranch exhibits a large unbroken expanse of diverse relatively natural habitat interconnected to tens of thousands of acres of public lands. Ivins Ranch shares six miles of boundary with BLM and state lands, buffering important biological values on adjacent public lands. Conservation of the Ivins Ranch protects an interconnected landscape reaching from Lone Mesa State Park to McKenna Peak Wilderness Study Area north of Disappointment Valley.

Ivins Ranch supports the family’s fifth generation livestock operation which was started in the 1930s by DeAnn Ivins’ grandfather and great-uncles, the Adams Brothers.

“There were four of them and they split up the ranch. This is the piece my grandfather got”, DeAnn Ivins states. When Ivins’ parents married in 1946, they committed to continuing the family’s ranching tradition. “We raised sheep,” Ivins said. “It was sheep all the time until I was a teenager. The ranch was our base and we had summer pasture on Lizard Head, Silverton, and all the way to Lake City. Then you couldn’t find herders anymore and the coyotes got bad and we started moving over to cattle. Four years after I got married we started running the ranch and now our son (Justin) does it. It has gone on for that long. Of the four ranches from when the Adams brothers split, we are the only one that is still a ranch like it was.” This heritage is behind the Ivins’ decision to conserve the ranch.

“It is hard to run a ranch on what we make off the ranch,” Ivins says. “The conservation easement is a really nice way to keep the ranch running as it is and not have to sell off pieces for development. We believe in conservation. There are deer and elk, bear and turkeys, and mountain lions up there. We want to keep it as it is and it is the best way in the world to raise children”.

Ivins Ranch is the largest private parcel in the Groundhog-Glade area. Nestled in between South Mountain (9,478’) and Disappointment Valley (7,400’), its elevational gradient and topographic complexity create a variety of micro environments that support 13 major vegetation types on the property. The presence of aspen forests, spruce-fir forests, ponderosa pine forests, blue spruce, oak woodlands, juniper woodlands, mixed mountain shrublands, rabbitbrush shrublands, grasslands, willow-dominated riparian wetlands, herbaceous wetlands, open water, and rock and shale outcrops create a multitude of habitats capable of supporting a high level of biodiversity. The property holds substantial elk calving and winter range, important black bear summer and fall habitat, and expected or possible habitat for 33 Tier 1 and Tier 2 species of greatest conservation need as identified by the Colorado Wildlife Conservation Strategy.

In addition to its natural, landscape, and scenic values, Ivins Ranch is part of the agricultural fabric and heritage of our community. The property provides spring, summer, and fall range for the family’s fourth generation cow calf operation. The Ivins’ land ethic and careful stewardship are a model for natural resource conservation through agriculture; their decision to permanently protect their ranch continues the legacy and momentum created by the late Wilson Brumley’s decision to conserve Groundhog Ranch.