Located in an astonishingly beautiful and serene river corridor adjoining thousand-foot-high yellow and red sandstone canyon walls, the Yampa River winds its way through Lily Park Ranch for 8.5 miles and the Little Snake River for 5.85 miles, and the confluence of the Yampa River and Little Snake River occurs on the property as well. The ranch is blessed with valuable water rights and owners are entitled to pull water directly from the river to irrigate meadows and pastures that rest alongside the rivers. These rights are recognized as some of the most senior water rights in the Yampa River Basin and by themselves represent a long-term investment opportunity.
Locale
The Lily Park Ranch is just west of the cowboy town of Craig, the county seat of Moffat County, where one can find all the conveniences of town including a grocery, hotels, and medical care.
The Yampa River is one of the last largely natural and untamed river ecosystems in the entire Colorado River drainage. The river canyon is extremely popular with white-water boaters and the river contains unique and endangered fish species. Adjoining the ranch to the west downstream on the Yampa is Dinosaur National Monument with its colorful sandstone canyons and cliffs rivaling those of the Grand Canyon and encompassing some of the nation’s richest archaeological resources.
Spanning western Colorado and eastern Utah, Dinosaur National Monument exists in the cradle of North American history. Captured here is one of the world’s largest concentrations of fossilized dinosaur bones. and includes over 210,000 acres of scenic river canyons, mountains, basins, and archeological sites. The area includes an interesting blend of wildlife, wilderness, solitude, and history that has changed little over the last 1,000 years.
Climate
Climatically and biologically the Lily Park Ranch is part of the Great Basin Desert, but its weather, plants, and animals are more diverse than the term desert suggests. Surrounded by high-elevation peaks the climate is Mediterranean with high relative humidity and moderate seasonal moisture. Summer temperatures can range from 60 to 90 degrees but in the winter the temperatures can drop from 32 degrees to zero. Sunlight warming the canyon walls contributes to the thermal warming of the soils and bedrock at the base of cliffs. This is desert or semi-desert and it is dry with average annual precipitation from a low of 10 inches to up to 13 inches depending on altitude.
