Sunday MAY 13, 2018 B DENVERPOST.

COM B THE DENVER POST 6 SECTION B

DENVER & THE WEST

PARKER: Fatal plane crash leaves nearby neighborhood shaken. »6B
G R E AT A ME RICAN HO R S E D R IVE

How wildness could

remain in the West

Josh Graves, center, leads other cowboys and girls, wranglers and riders as they start the Great American Horse Drive. Photos by Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post

By Bruce Finley The Denver Post

F
BROWNS PARK »
our hundred unbridled
horses lolled in the amber
morning sun, some lying
and rolling on their backs,
dominating their silvery
sagebrush-studded winter pasture.
But Sombrero Ranch manager
Donald Broom rode up and raised his
lasso.
“It’s time to get going,” he said.
One by one the horses got up and,
within a few minutes last week, all
were galloping into the first stretch
of a two-day, 65-mile drive to a
Cowboy Luke Boonstra watches as horse trainer Steve Cowgirl Kallie Smith, 14, and her horse wait for the greener spring pasture called Big
Mantle, not shown, works with a horse in an arena at Great American Horse Drive to come through Maybell Gulch.
Sombrero Ranch in Brown’s Park. on May 5. This latest drive builds on a 60-
year tradition for one of the nation’s
largest domesticated horse herds. At
Big Gulch, the horses will be inspect-
ed, de-wormed and shod for duty at
L E G I SL AT U RE stables in tourist towns and summer
camps.

The biggest bills that passed — and some that didn’t
A digest of what you missed in 2018,
from taxes to crime to transportation
By John Frank
and Jesse Paul
The Denver Post
Colorado lawmakers intro-
duced more than 700 bills in
the 2018 legislative session
covering a wide range of top-
ics — from transportation to
taxes and school safety to
health care.
The majority of the legisla-
tion was not controversial
and offered minor tweaks to
current law, but the debate on
dozens of bills came down to
the final hours before the
General Assembly adjourned
Wednesday.
If you’re wondering what
you missed, here’s a look at a
sample of bills that passed or
failed in the 120-day term.
Gov. John Hickenlooper still
needs to act on many of them.
Education
PASSED
In their final year of train-
ing, teachers-to-be could re-
ceive a $10,000 stipend as part
of a fellowship program that
seeks to recruit them to rural
school districts experiencing
educator shortages.
Community colleges can
seek approval to offer a four-
year bachelor’s degree in
nursing.
A $500,000 pot of money
would provide grants to
school personnel and first re-
sponders for research and
training in how to respond to
school shootings and other
emergencies.
Teachers could apply for a
stipend of up to $6,000 to pur-
sue professional develop-
ment, so long as they commit
to spending three years at a
rural school.
A $29.5 million program
would provide grants to
schools for security upgrades,
BILLS » 8B
It is the most visible sign that the
horse ranching that emerged with
the 19th-century settlement of the
West may survive as an economic
and cultural mainstay in northwest-
ern Colorado. Locals here claim the
area to be — as they put it on the
town sign at Maybell — “where the
West is still wild.”
Outlaws hung out here. Overt hos-
tility to government regulation per-
sists. Wild horses in the region are
multiplying rapidly. Back in the
1950s, federal agencies tried to dam
the Yampa River, which would have
put ranches here 200 feet under wa-
ter, but the project was rebuffed with
the aid of the Sierra Club.
HORSES » 7B

B e l l & P o l l o c k P. C .

ge nver
S i
6 THE DENVER POST B DENVERPOST.COM • SUNDAY, MAY 13, 2018 DENVER & THE WEST «7B

“We want people to understand what the real West

is like. It is not a TV show. It is a lot of hard work.”
HORSES
«FROM 1B
Children at summer camps,
tourists in Estes Park and hunters
who rent horses have kept horse
ranching alive. But Sombrero
Ranch also depends increasingly
on a magnetic appeal that draws
wanna-be Westerners who pay
$2,400 to be a part of the annual
horse drive. There’s a waiting list.
Outsiders pay to work with
Broom and his crew on an un-
scripted, sometimes dangerous
drive that follows the Yampa, one
of the last free-flowing rivers.
“The horses look good,” Broom
said, watching as the last of them
bolted out a wind-scoured wood-
en gate. “It’s a good feeling.”
The riders are searching for
what they perceive as a pure and
meaningful existence, and some
come from as far as Europe, such
as Rachel Bice, 41, who is a climate
change policy specialist in British
local government.
Bice spotted a golden eagle and
antelope. Riding up a ridge, her
horse startled a mule deer. She
watched the deer bounding away
through sage, scaring up a rabbit.
“Your ecosystems here are in-
tact,” she said. “Our ecosystems
are so affected by human beings.”
Then at the crest, she could see
for miles to the dark, snowy Cowboy Ken McCall, right, leads other riders past the Maybell General Store during the Great American Horse Drive as it passes
woods around Hahns Peak. through town on May 5. Maybell has a population of fewer than 100 people. The annual drive is a two-day ride over open range where
“You feel like you are properly cowboys and riders move 400 to 500 Sombrero horses 62 miles to their ranch just west of Craig.
in nature as nature wants to be,” Photos by Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post
Bice said, and realized she’d rath-
er be living here in the West than
in Cornwall, where she said she
can’t go “500 meters without hit-
ting a house.”
“Civilization started out making
us more human,” she said. “But
now it is making us less human.”
Nowadays, driving horses
across open land “is one of the
few things that is real,” said petro-
leum engineer Zac Walker, 27, of
Greeley, a grandson of ranch
owner Rex Walker.
A power outage or smartphone
collapse along Colorado’s boom-
ing urban Front Range creates cri-
ses, whereas surviving true West-
erners remain independent and
rely on themselves, he said. “If it is
raining here, I am wet. If it is cold,
I dress warmly.” Cowgirl Stacey Tuttle drives hundreds of horses through Tourists and onlookers take photos of the hundreds of horses
History professor Bengt Sandin, sagebrush during the drive on May 5. resting in a field on May 6.
69, from Sweden, made his fifth
journey this month to help move ter of gravity. with Colorado numbers surging childhood, on a porch. Somebody ground with him?” Bishop asked.
the horses to grass. “This is a place Broom is running for Moffat to twice as high as a target num- dragged a light gray gelding into “There is no average,” Mantle
where you can do something that County commissioner. ber that land can sustain, by bait- the frame. said, suggesting maybe the best
actually feels authentic.” Concerns that a crucial local ing wild mares and injecting birth Then Sara Bishop, 23, mounted thing to do is leave the ring and sit
For Santa Fe-based commercial coal mine eventually will go out of control. There’s no longer enough that horse and rode it around the outside drinking a glass of iced
developer Greg Gonzales, 55, rid- business, as power plants shift to open land, and the feds are trying barn, a flash of silver in an expen- tea.
ing full tilt on the horse drive felt renewable energy, are spurring a to avoid extermination of wild sive Hugo Boss robe. Her friend “Do you want to be able to back
like “touching a lost dream.” He push for diversification to bring horses. Ranch hands work care- Lyndsey Fitch, 28, followed on a him up real fast? Then, you gotta
said he loved how ranch hands jobs so that schools, museums and fully to minimize mixing. dark horse, wearing shiny high- spend more time working with
seemed to be “trusting us. ... This libraries can survive. Before the horse drive, partici- heeled black vinyl boots. him.”
ride is actually accomplishing “We all know it is going away. pants gathered around a fire, Meanwhile, as the sun set, Zane Bishop kept at it. “He’s starting
something, getting a job done. It We have got to get something go- heard a sweet rendering of the na- Bishop, 19, worked in a ring with to go better to his weak side.”
makes it less touristy.” ing,” Broom said. “That some- tional anthem and recited the his horse, Houdini, as other hands Mantle said: “That’s super cool
Gonzales has found, when he thing is recreation.” Pledge of Allegiance. sat on the fence. Steve Mantle, 61, to see you noticing that and pay-
runs for exercise back home, that This may entail luring more And at dusk, ranch hands and a rancher from Wyoming who ing attention to that because it
he is “tied to the land.” whitewater kayakers and rafters, outsiders alike relaxed, sinking grew up on a ranch that would will make you a better horseman.”
Yet as a developer, he also un- and visitors to nearby Dinosaur into easy conversation with smart have been drowned by the dam By then Freda was calling; it was
derstands how market forces and National Monument. But Broom phones not working. and helps the BLM tame wild dinner time. Bishop and the oth-
dissatisfaction among people liv- said some sort of light manufac- There was some craziness in horses, was guiding Bishop in the ers went in.
ing in heavily built cities are turing, perhaps a Patagonia zipper this wild West moment, including ring. Mantle is a cousin to Bish- But Mantle paused a bit, savor-
transforming open Western land- factory, could help keep people a Los Angeles photographer try- op’s mother, Freda. ing the silence, meeting the eyes
scapes and traditions.”I want ’em here from having to kowtow en- ing to persuade ranch hands to Bishop said he wants to serve of the horses.
to survive here,” he said. “Do I tirely to tourists. pose wearing high-fashion outfits. his country as a Navy Seal. He “Out here, it is quiet and peace-
think they will? To be honest, The horse drive often proves He got girls to put on the outfits also is wanted here to help run the ful. Is it wild anymore? Maybe it is
probably not. We are a very short- difficult. — a red dress, hats, earrings. ranch. just quiet and peaceful,” he said.
sighted society.” This year, one rider broke a leg Ranch hands mostly didn’t want a He faced Houdini, holding a “Maybe the wildness is over there
Texas-born patriarch Walker, and had to be evacuated after doc- part of it, though some of them lead rope, trying to move the along the Front Range.”
83, started the ranch around 1957 tors in Craig set the bone. Anoth- hung around watching. The pho- horse slightly sideways and back-
with 16 horses. After working in er rider fell and cracked ribs dur- tographer posed people including ward. Houdini resisted a bit. Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700,
Venezuela for the Socony Mobil ing the first 5-mile stretch leading the Swedish professor, who stud- “On an average horse, how bfinley@denverpost.com or
Oil company, he paid $13 an acre down to the river. Paramedics ies the evolution of the concept of much time do you spend on the @finleybruce
for his land. (The price has gone hauled him out. And another who
up to $1,000 an acre.) fell, hurting his head, dismounted
Over the years, he grew the for the rest of the drive.
herd as big as 2,500 and bought The Bureau of Land Manage-
more land in Colorado and Arizo- ment and the Forest Service re-
na. Beyond getting paid by out- quire permits for every rider. And
side riders — “some fall off, some those agencies demand their cut
don’t” — the point of his annual — 3 percent of the revenues from
“Great American Horse Drive” is paying riders because the drive
preserving the West mytholo- moves horses across federal land.
gized in cowboy movies featuring Drone aircraft launched by
Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. tourist photographers add to the
“We want people to understand sense of intrusion. Last year, the
what the real West is like. It is not whirring of a drone about 15 feet
a TV show. It is a lot of hard above horses as they moved
work,” Walker said, adding that through Maybell spooked one. It
he’s confident outsiders from the jumped a car.
booming Front Range won’t de- This year, county commission-
stroy the place by buying out lo- ers passed a resolution urging
cals and building. drone pilots not to fly their devic-
“This country is too hard for yup- es near horses.
pies. You gotta work hard to make “We had to get out in front of
it. Look,” he said, sweeping a hand that before it happened,” Broom
across the horizon. “Not a tree. said.
This is a high-plains desert. And as And he noted that wild horse
long as families own the land, and protectors, too, have created fric-
we don’t sell it, it won’t change.” tion. Some of the horses in Som-
However, Walker and Broom, brero’s herd were born wild. BLM
his son-in-law, both see a need for officials are struggling to control
building up a local economic cen- the growing wild horse herds, Cowgirl Kris Zero works with her horse in the setting sun at Sombrero Ranch in Brown's Park.