New Dawn on The Tavaputs Ranch

Price, Photo by Ron Francis, NRCS Leopold Conservation Award Recipient 2009

tanding at the Tavaputs denotes one of eastern Utah’s In its middle, the Plateau is Ranch headquarters on most remote and spectacular cleaved in two by Desolation Desolation ’s geographical features. The Canyon. Carved over millions Swestern rim, an early-rising Tavaputs Plateau is a high of years by the Green River, observer willing to quit his bed tableland of alpine meadows Desolation splits through the before the aroma of coffee and shimmering aspen groves Plateau’s russet-colored rock, or bacon stirs his senses may that climbs gradually from the its sloped walls dropping over witness a performance of rare Uintah Basin to an altitude 5,000 feet to the bottom where and dramatic beauty. The scrim of 10,000 feet, terminating the mazy river twists along its of sky lightens, blushes deeply, Carved over millions of years by the Green River, splits through and slowly sets the stage alight the Plateau’s russet-colored rock, its sloped walls dropping over 5,000 feet to the with reds, pinks, and violets. Though its sides are not as There is a pause—then, the sun bursts forth from the canyon’s recesses, illuminating sky above at its southern boundary in and rugged landscape below. the shattered cathedrals and as steep as the Grand Canyon, As sunrises go, this is one for the tumbledown ramparts of the Desolation is a deeper cut bucket list. Standing there on Book Cliffs. For millennia, this in the earth. As it happens, the brink of the canyon, you can place was a summer oasis to Desolation comes by its name easily imagine you’re witnessing Ute and Fremont Indians, a honestly; there are no roads in verdant island of summer grass or out. It is still truly wild country, dawning of the ages. and good hunting grounds understood to be one of the It’s no accident, then, that sequestered high above the most remote places in the lower the word “Tavaputs” means baking heat of the painted Utah 48 states. “sunrise” in the language desert. of the Ute Indians. It also 16 New Dawn on The Tavaputs Ranch | Tavaputs Ranch

SCF Magazinejp.indd 16 1/24/2014 1:19:18 PM Jensen family has been

Butch and Jeanie Jensen Photo by Gaylene Erwin

New Dawn on The Tavaputs Ranch | Tavaputs Ranch 17

SCF Magazinejp.indd 17 1/24/2014 1:19:26 PM The headquarters of Butch alpine region down to a great their piece of wilderness. and Jeanie Jensen’s Tavaputs chain of desert cliffs. “The land was there for the Ranch perches at 9,500 feet on “A long plateau stretches the rim of the Tavaputs Plateau, across the river in an easterly and people in there,” says Butch with Desolation Canyon as its westerly direction, the summit Jensen. astonishing backdrop. Even in covered by pine forests and It was little wonder settlers this age of heavy-duty diesel intervening valleys and gulches,” had not yet staked out this pickups and satellite internet, it’s the notes read. “The plateau country. With no roads in to hard to fathom life in a place so itself is cut in two by the canyon. Desolation Canyon, and none up remote that a quick trip to the Other side head away to Tavaputs, all the McPhersons’ back from the river and run down belongings and equipment had butter is an all-day (mostly back- into the Green… . The elevation to be packed in on horses and road) journey. But the Jensens of the plateau being about 8,000 mules, each trip taking days. are as rooted in the Tavaputs feet above the level of the sea, Heavy objects had to be broken country as any one of the stately it is a region of moisture, as is down for the journey in. well attested by the forests and “All the horse-drawn farm along its alpine ridges. This tight- grassy valleys… . On these high equipment, stoves—everything knit family comes from a line of tablelands, elk and deer abound; you can imagine on a ranch tough, resilient homesteaders and they are favorite hunting in that era—they’d just take who have known how to weather grounds for the Ute Indians.” everything apart, bolt by bolt, great hardship through to the Powell and his men made piece by piece, as little as dawn of new opportunities. day trips to explore the Plateau they could get it, and put it on But the Jensens’ attachment as they boated the Green River, pack mules,” explains Butch. to this country isn’t just due to passing through a deep canyon “Then you had to reassemble staying power; it’s a matter of Powell described as having many everything.” deeply held affection. In the tributaries, potentially making (Amazingly, it wasn’t until aspen groves, pine forests, it good wintering country for 1943 that roads were put in to cattle, but also with a dark and the Tavaputs homestead, ending their nurturing touch is visible wild aspect. “…[C]rags and the era of pack trains up the everywhere in this land of tower-shaped peaks are seen mountain; Desolation Canyon, isolation and spectacular beauty. everywhere, and away above however, remains roadless even them, long lines of broken cliffs; today.) and above and beyond the cliffs The family homesteaded are pine forests, of which we both in the canyon and on the Jeanie Jensen’s great-great- obtain occasional glimpses as plateau. But within 10 years, grandfather, David McPherson, we look up through a vista of both David and his brother homesteaded the Tavaputs rocks,” Powell wrote. “We are would be dead—lost to tragic Ranch in 1889. He emigrated to minded to call this the Canyon of accidents—leaving the running Utah from the Midwest, planning Desolation.” of the remote McPherson to work on steam engines for the This account stirred ranch to young Jim McPherson, railroad. It was the mid-1880s; the frontiersman in David David’s 26-year-old son. Jim the wilder parts of central and embraced the challenge, southern Utah were only just put the lush summer country over time assembling one of being explored and documented on the Tavaputs together at the time. McPherson was able with the low, sheltered land in Hereford cattle in the region. He to lay his hands on a copy of Desolation Canyon to build eventually married, and had a John Wesley Powell’s notebook an ideal summer-winter cattle schoolteacher brought in to tutor from his 1869 expedition on operation—provided he had the Green and Colorado Rivers, the gumption to pull it off. organ packed in on a mule to an adventure bankrolled by McPherson took the challenge. the Desolation homestead so his the Smithsonian Institution. In 1889, he and his family loaded family could enjoy music. In his notes, Powell went into up their possessions, took on “That’s what’s amazing about great detail about a lush, high supplies at the town of Green young Jim,” says Butch, “is that tableland stretching from Utah’s River, and pushed off to claim he kept it together as such a

18 New Dawn on The Tavaputs Ranch | Tavaputs Ranch

SCF Magazinejp.indd 18 1/24/2014 1:19:26 PM place in Desolation Canyon; their list of action movies. One small did real well.” honeymoon was spent snowed group of cattle and some of the In 1927, Jim McPherson sold in at a sheep camp, babysitting ranch horses are in for a real-life the ranch to his daughter and cattle on the San Rafael Desert. cliffhanger—trailing down to son-in-law, Pearl and Budge Their two kids— son Tate, and the original McPherson winter Wilcox, who were Jeanie’s daughter Jennie—came along country in Desolation Canyon. grandparents. The ranch then in 1980 and 1982, respectively. “The Desolation thing is still passed to Jeanie’s father, Don Butch and Jeanie raised Tate and pretty tough today,” says Butch. Jennie in the saddle—trailing “There’s no roads in there, so Butch. cattle, roping, and more recently when you go in, you’ve got to take Butch Jensen’s family partnering in the running of the a string of mules, with your grub showed up on the Tavaputs ranch. And as a capstone to the and your beds.” Plateau a bit later, homesteading Jensens’ lasting legacy on the the Rock Creek Ranch in 1918. Tavaputs Plateau, in 2004 Butch By 1947, Therald, Butch’s father, and Jeanie completed an historic This song of the waters had begun buying out his uncles, land deal that allowed them and eventually acquired the to put their family homesteads is audible to every ear, ranch outright. At the time, there together as a single operation. but there is other music were other homesteaders on Butch and Jeanie’s story may in these hills, by no the Plateau, but little by little sound like a cowboy fairytale— they sold out their land and two ranchers’ kids falling in means audible to all. cattle, opting for a less bracing love on the top of an isolated To hear even a few notes existence than that afforded by mountain—but Butch likes to the thin Tavaputs air. As they keep it in perspective. dispersed, Wilcoxes and Jensens “In all reality, you ought to here for a long time, bought up the land for their feel sorry for her, because hell, and you must know the growing operations. she didn’t have anything to speech of hills and rivers. “It’s just been kind of a choose from,” smiles Butch. checkerboard game,” says —Aldo Leopold Butch. “As ranchers would quit, Running a Ranch in the Sky either my side of the family would buy something up, or The spectacular Tavaputs Jeanie’s family. It’s taken two or Ranch is in fact only one “Pretty tough” is typical three lifetimes of a checkerboard component of the Jensens’ cowboy understatement. To drive game to piece by piece put cattle operation, which its stock into Desolation, the everything together.” comprises several high- and Tavaputs crew must pick its way By the ’70s, there were only low-elevation ranges scattered down the 130-year-old trails that three ranches left on the remote across a handful of counties. Due were chipped into the canyon’s Tavaputs Plateau: the Rock Creek to impassible winter snow, cattle precipitously sloping sides by graze on Tavaputs only in the steely-nerved homesteaders. The other. Butch and Jeanie were summer months, same as on drop—if you drop—is several young adults by this time, but the Jensens’ other high country, thousand feet. Over the years, a they had known each other all Emma Park, which is located few unlucky critters have taken the their lives. 20 miles north of the town of plunge, but so far, no cowboys. “We grew up together in the Price. In the fall, the Jensens The key to success on the summer months,” says Butch. trail or haul their 1,200 head of Jensens’ operation is to manage “They’d be over at our place, Angus-based mother cows out these winter desert permits with we’d be over at theirs, as kids.” of these privately owned summer constant attention and care. The In a turn of events any ranges down to lower elevations. high summer pastures receive Hollywood director would relish, After the calves are weaned, ample precipitation; when cows Butch and Jeanie fell for each the cows are divided among and calves are turned out on the several desert BLM grazing Tavaputs Plateau in June, the cows. Butch proposed to Jeanie permits—Icelander, Sinbad, slopes are lush and green with down at the old McPherson Cisco—names that read like a Thurber fescue—a grass that is

New Dawn on The Tavaputs Ranch | Tavaputs Ranch 19

SCF Magazinejp.indd 19 1/24/2014 1:19:26 PM 100 percent,” says Butch, who private range on the Tavaputs attributes the practice of running Plateau to cooperate with Experience Tavaputs Ranch moderate herds of cattle to his conservationists and researchers and Jeanie’s parents. “You try to improve habitat for a range Join the Jensens on their of wildlife species. For example, historic, 10,000-acre years come along, and we could scientists with the Natural Tavaputs Ranch for a guided run a lot more cattle. But then Resources Conservation Service hunt or ranch vacation. a couple droughty years come (NRCS)—in partnership with U.S. Ranch trips and activities along, and you get beat up.” Fish and Wildlife—have worked are planned to create a By not grazing their for several years with the Jensens truly western experience winter permits too heavily, the for visitors. Choose Jensens always leave standing grouse by enhancing sagebrush accommodations in the feed. It’s one way to keep the habitat. Through removing older, main lodge or in private native bunch grasses healthy overgrown sagebrush on over cabins close by. If hunting and vigorous, but it’s also an 1,000 acres of private land, the adventure is your game, insurance policy for those tough Jensens and their partners have Tavaputs offers guided years when having a little extra created a diverse mosaic of hunts for bucks, trophy elk grass on the ground makes the vegetation, including grasses, and black bear. Because of difference between making it forbs, and young sagebrush, its mountain elevation, the through or having an expensive all of which are essential to the season is limited from June hay bill. sage grouse’s diet. Through their 20th through September 31st. Not surprisingly, water is also participation in this project, the critical to the Jensens’ success Jensens have done more than Email out on their desert permits. improve sage grouse habitat on or visit Water is essential for the cattle’s their own ranch, however; they survival, but water is also the tool also provide a valuable testing the Jensens use to rotate their ground for new techniques of cattle from one spot to another, sage grouse conservation. native to the Plateau but grows ensuring that the range is not “The Jensens have been nowhere else in Utah. The low overgrazed in one location, and real proactive in wanting to winter country is much drier and that different areas get used sustain good wildlife habitat as tougher; to make matters more at different times each year. challenging, the cows must The family has made a sizeable operation,” says Jeff Fenton, conceive while making their living on whatever winter feed is While the Jensens have spent generations stewarding these public lands with the available on the desert. pride of private landowners, they have also opened the doors of their private “The mountain country’s great, researchers to improve habitat for a range of wildlife species. but you really live and die by those winter ranges,” says Butch. Generations of negotiating investment developing stock rangeland management eastern Utah’s dry spells have ponds and wells; they even haul specialist with NRCS. “We’re instilled in the Jensen family a water out to the desert when reducing that dense canopy deep respect for conserving the cover of sagebrush, and we’re resources on their BLM winter Jensens’ water development creating a lot more openings permits. To keep the range from efforts include antelope, deer, for the grasses and forbs which getting overtaxed, the Jensens live and other wild denizens of the are important to sage grouse, as by a simple rule: graze moderately. desert—as well as the taxpayer, who well as deer and elk. It’s going to Although they are entitled to run pays nothing for this public service. help create a better diversity of substantially more cattle on their While the Jensens have vegetation up there overall.” BLM permit, the Jensens have spent generations stewarding The open-door policy at always turned out fewer cattle than these public lands with the pride the Tavaputs Ranch extends to their permit allows. of private landowners, they have other folks, as well. In the 1950s, “We’ve never stocked ’em also opened the doors of their Jeanie’s family started running a

20 New Dawn on The Tavaputs Ranch | Tavaputs Ranch

SCF Magazinejp.indd 20 1/24/2014 1:19:27 PM Photo by Ron Francis, NRCS

lead tours. In contrast to the Little surprise, then, that for guiding hunters on deer hunts in looting sustained by many many visitors, a stay with the the fall; they later expanded to archeological sites, the Range Jensens is a revelation. accommodate summer guests Creek settlements are virtually “The most common thing we who wanted to experience life undisturbed. This is largely due hear from our guests is, ‘We had on a working ranch. To enhance to being held for over a hundred no idea that this kind of thing both the wildlife watching and years in private ownership. was still going on in the world,’ ” hunting opportunities, Butch’s There’s no question that the laughs Butch. “Hell, it’s just an and Jeanie’s parents teamed up guest business has been helpful everyday thing to us.” in the ’80s to reintroduce elk to to the Jensens’ bottom line. the Plateau. Today, through the Jensens’ careful stewardship, remote and beautiful world go the original herd the families well beyond the pocketbook. Everyday things on the transplanted has expanded to City folks have a rare opportunity Tavaputs Ranch don’t change between 2,500 and 3,000 head, to witness living history—cattle much. Sure, it’s handy to be able with hunting guests taking drives, big game, homesteader to drive a stock truck to ranch several trophy bulls every season. cabins, and working cowboys— headquarters as opposed to a More recently, the Jensen’s things that for most people exist mule train (goosenecks still can’t summer tour business has been only in John Wayne movies. make it up the mountain). But dominated by visitors to nearby And perhaps more importantly, the cowboy crew still trails cattle Range Creek Canyon, formerly off the mountain in autumn on owned by Jeanie’s uncle, Jensens how cattle ranching but now in possession of the and conservation can be mule train still humps bedrolls University of Utah. Range Creek complementary pursuits. and grub into Desolation contains extraordinarily well- “It’s wonderful to show Canyon when the Jensens move preserved examples of Fremont people our way of life, and cattle and horses down to the Indian granaries, petroglyphs, how we take care of the land old McPherson winter country. In ruins, and artifacts—the and preserve it,” says Jennie the early morning, Jensens are one of the handful Christensen, Butch and Jeanie’s daughter.

New Dawn on The Tavaputs Ranch | Tavaputs Ranch 21

SCF Magazinejp.indd 21 1/24/2014 1:19:29 PM Butch and Jeanie have every and son-in-law will be able to carry the Tavaputs Ranch into the future, and pass the family legacy of homesteading and land stewardship on to coming generations. “She’s my best hand,” Butch says of his daughter. “These pregnancies seem to slow ’em down a little bit, but it doesn’t last long,” he adds with a wink. The storm is over, and the sky is clearing. It’s been a tough go for the Jensens, losing Tate so suddenly, so soon. But the wounds are slowly mending, to the extent that such wounds Tate and Butch Jensen ever do. Like their homesteader Photo by Gaylene Erwin forebears, they will learn to live with the unimaginable, and bacon and coffee for the crew “Life goes on, but I’ll tell you, carry on. And with their seventh are still plentiful and hot. And it sure is lonesome without Tate,” generation of cowboy boots the Tavaputs sunrise will still says Butch. “He and I, we were planted squarely on the ground, turn craggy-faced cowboys into good buddies.” the sun is rising on the Tavaputs poets and dreamers. With the The loss to the family, Ranch. exception of a few technological and to the ranch, was beyond conveniences (satellite internet: reckoning. But Butch, Jeanie, yes, telephones: no) and the and daughter Jennie have done passing down of the ranch from what homesteaders do: one generation to the next, They carried one another everyday things have carried through the darkest hours, and on with comparatively few now they will carry on. What interruptions over the years. remains is to remember Tate, Yet even this idyllic life and rebuild. high on the Plateau has not Jennie will eventually take escaped misfortune. Like their over the running of the ranch homesteader ancestors, terrible with her husband, Jeff, and their loss has tested the Jensens’ son, Jax Tate. “I’ve got big boots courage and resolve. In 2011, disaster struck when Tate, Butch was a true cowboy,” says Jennie. and Jeanie’s son, was tragically But she’s got good help. Jeff killed. A range science major has gamely taken on the task in college and already a leader of learning several generations’ in the cattle industry at 31, Tate worth of stewardship with Butch Jensen was universally admired and Jennie as tutors. And more and respected; his passing has help’s on the way. Jennie and Jeff Jennie and Jeff left a big hole in the ranch’s are expecting—they have another Photo by Gaylene Erwin future, and many aching hearts. little cowboy due next spring.

22 New Dawn on The Tavaputs Ranch | Tavaputs Ranch

SCF Magazinejp.indd 22 1/24/2014 1:19:37 PM