SAGUACHE COUNTY — The Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust will celebrate conservation at the Headwaters Hoedown on Saturday, September 23rd, from 1 to 5 p.m. at the lovely La Garita Creek Ranch in Saguache County. Please save the date! Check www.riograndelandtrust.org for all the details and to buy tickets.  

The celebration is a chance to listen (and dance!) to the music of local favorites, Don Richmond and the Rifters, feast on great food by Pepita Catering, partake of the wine and beer, and explore the beauty and archaeological features on the ranch. The whole family is welcome!

The Headwaters Hoedown is also the time of year when friends and neighbors, can join to both celebrate and help do what it takes to save those very ranches, with the annual “Save the Ranch” campaign.

Each year, a spectacular ranch is highlighted, and this year’s is indeed very special. Just south of the confluence of the Rio Grande and Conejos River in Conejos County is the beautiful Olguin Ranch. Valued partners at Western Rivers Conservancy (WRC) bought the 1,300+ acre ranch from longtime owners, the Olguin family. The east part will be added to WRC’s exciting project to conserve river corridor habitat and create new county open space on the 16,707--acre Brownie Hills property on the east side of the Rio Grande in Costilla County. The part of the Olguin Ranch on the west side of the river will be protected with a conservation easement with RiGHT.  It will also include access from the Rio Grande to the river banks.  There will be signs to show where it’s open to access.

RiGHT is very pleased to be working with WRC to conserve the Olguin Ranch’s land and water and to keep it as a working ranch.  The groups are aiming for completion in late 2017 or early 2018 and have had great success in raising funds for the project, with secured funding from Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) along with the North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA), the LOR Foundation and the Gates Family Foundation. Each conservation easement is a complex process that takes a lot of staff time to do it well.  

That’s why the public’s help is so important to conservation! RiGHT, has more interest from SLV landowners than ever in its 18 years of serving the community and would like to keep that momentum going strong, by doing all that it takes to help families work through the process and give a “gift to the future” by conserving their land and water.

For complete information, call 719-657-0800, visit www.riograndelandtrust.org, and/or find RiGHT on Facebook.