Our Journey

The High Lonesome Ranch is a national-park-scale ranch in Western Colorado whose acreage and mission have grown to address the challenges of managing a public and private landscape for multiple use outcomes – living, conserving, ranch, and resourcing – in a rapidly changing world.

The HLR differs from large national parks in their implementation of strategies to integrate human use with the protections and promotion of indigenous plants and wildlife.

The scale of The High Lonesome Ranch facilitates large resilient ecosystems to conserve biodiversity against a rising backdrop of rising resource consumption, population growth, urbanization, climate change, and increased participation in outdoor activities. Healthy, large-scale habitat corridors are being fragmented or lost due to growing human incursion and climate volatility.