With three creeks traversing the length of the ranch along with multiple seeps, springs, tanks, and natural lakes.
JW Ranch offers the opportunity to own one of the few significant ranch properties in the iconic Cuchara Valley of southern Colorado. This ranch in Colorado offers the unique and coveted combination of supreme privacy, excellent hunting, and livestock production all only 5 minutes away from the quaint town of La Veta with restaurants/cafes, grocery, and hardware stores. The land itself is mostly gently rolling with an ideal mix of meadows and Oak/Cottonwood/Pine cover; there is an abundance of water here, with three creeks traversing the length of the ranch along with multiple seeps, springs, tanks, and natural lakes. This property is protected by a conservation easement allowing for the renovation of existing structures and construction of a new home and outbuildings with no size restrictions on an ideally sited 3-acre building envelope.
Several photographs and video of JW Ranch are taken by Camera Head Media.
Approximately 80% of this property is flat to gently rolling with an ideal mix of grassland meadow, shrubland, and forestland. Riparian habitat, including cottonwood cover, characterizes the three ephemeral creeks traversing the property from east to west. The western 20% of the property is more mountainous, with some steeper slopes and heavier cover.
The views from JW are extraordinary; the north-facing, snow-covered slopes of the iconic Spanish Peaks, at almost 14,000 feet in elevation, lie only a few miles to the south. La Veta, Colorado, with restaurants, cafes, grocery, and hardware stores, is less than two miles away from the eastern end of the property.
The dramatic Mt. Maestas and Silver Mountain round out the northern viewshed. This property is extremely private, secluded, quiet, and blessed with an abundance of wildlife and hunting opportunities, all while being adjacent to town and only a 2.5-hour drive from Denver.
Because of the combination of terrific oak brush cover, irrigated meadows, and an abundance of water, JW enjoys an abundance of wildlife, including elk, mule deer, pronghorn, bear, turkey, mountain lion, and many small game species, raptors, and songbirds.
This area is known for producing big bulls and big bucks, and the owners have harvested bulls in excess of 360” and bucks in excess of 190” in the last couple of years. Generally, the western, more rugged section of the ranch is where the animals bed during the day, and in the afternoons and evenings, they migrate down and eastward into the meadowed flats and irrigated hay fields to feed through the night.
JW Ranch boasts an abundance of water rights with adjudication dates in the early 1900s and impressive first-in-time priority irrigating 180 acres. All of the ditches, headgates, and flumes are in excellent shape. The property generally gets one cutting of grass hay and grazes off the rest of the grass with mother cows. Stock water is abundant and strategically located and piped throughout the property through natural water sources, pipelines, and tanks.
There are two nice sets of working pens, traps, and the fences are all in good condition. The ranch can easily accommodate 100 cows and in normal water years. There are three clean, serviceable existing homes on the property.
The property is protected in perpetuity with a conservation easement held by The Nature Conservancy. The easement may be found here. The easement allows for the renovation of existing structures and construction of a new home and outbuildings with no size restrictions on an ideally sited 3-acre building envelope already equipped with on-grid power and water.
