Description:
Welcome to the Horse Prairie Ranch!
The Horse Prairie Ranch ("HPR") is an authentic working cattle and guest ranch. That means that we are the real thing....we are genuine. No "nose-to-tail" trail rides, golf, spas, or tennis courts at the HPR. What we can promise you is a taste of real "ranch life" underneath the big sky of Montana. We move cattle on horseback nearly every day. You can't imagine the difference in working on a cattle ranch from horseback, compared with just riding on trails.
Imagine... trekking through deep pristine Montana wilderness, the freedom of driving cattle under the never ending, big blue Montana sky, the delicate whisper of the swaying aspen groves, the fresh scent of untouched sage brush, the rustle of a curious moose in the willows, the soothing sound of a fresh mountain stream flowing outside your cabin window, or the magical colors of a powerful sun setting over the horizon. Discover it all at the Horse Prairie Ranch.
We hope that you find the information you are looking for and that you will email or call us for additional information and availability. If it is a genuine Western cattle ranch experience that you are looking for, and, you would like to stay in your own private luxurious log cabin, we are your place.
Happy trails and we hope to see you soon!
Ken & Marie Duncan and Family
Urs Schmidlen, Manager
Directions and/or Additional Information:
History
NOTE: Special rates available for our Lewis & Clark History Weeks during the first two weeks of October. Avoid the crowds at historic sites and enjoy one of southwest Montana’s most beautiful seasons. Experience the adventure of our Undaunted Courage horseback ride, inspired by the late Stephen Ambrose, a frequent visitor to the HPR. See where historians have acclaimed as the location where Meriwether Lewis encountered the young Shoshone Indian on horseback. Travel to Lemhi Pass and view the Idaho mountains seen by the Corps of Discovery. See Trail Creek where the Expedition discovered that the mighty Missouri could be easily straddled by a man. Bask in our hosting at the CreekSide Lodge at LakeSide and consider that you are riding, walking and touring on a little-known, off-the-beaten path spur of the famous Lewis & Clark Trail.
Sacajewea and the Lewis & Clark Expedition. The HPR is a working cattle ranch located in the northeast corner (an end-of-road, head-of-stream ranch) of the historic Horse Prairie Valley, on the southern slopes of the Big Hole Divide. The Horse Prairie Valley is so named because it is the valley where Sacajewea, traveling with the Lewis and Clark Expedition (America’s greatest adventure), first met her brother, Cameahwait, chief of the Shoshoni tribe, who approached the Expedition on horseback. Lewis and Clark were so impressed with the Shoshoni horses that they acquired several from Cameahwait and used them for their ascent of the Great Divide, into today’s Idaho. Sacajewea, who as a young girl had been kidnapped and reared with another tribe in the Dakotas, was overwhelmed with joy at meeting her brother and home tribe. Meriwether Lewis' historic encounter with a young Shoshoni Indian scout, according to historians, may have occurred near LakeSide on today's Horse Prairie Ranch.
Your stay at the HPR will include the Undaunted Courage Trail Ride (named after the bestseller book by the late Stephen Ambrose), in the area where Meriwether Lewis encountered the first young Shoshoni Indian scout, and where Lewis discovered the Indian Trail that led to Lemhi Pass and the Great Divide. On an off-ranch tour day, you could also drive to Lemhi Pass to experience what Lewis & Clark saw and felt when they thought they would see the Pacific Ocean, and saw only endless mountains in today's Idaho.
The Horse Prairie Valley is also historically significant because it is the valley through which a War Party of Nez Perce Indians traveled, following Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce’s famous battle with the U.S. Calvary in the Big Hole Valley (just over the mountain from the Horse Prairie Valley). The Nez Perce War Party, still angry from the massacre of their women and children at the Battle of the Big Hole, killed four ranchers in the Horse Prairie Valley at the site of today’s Lazy E-4 ranch, located just west of the Horse Prairie Ranch. HPR guests can visit the Big Hole Battlefield National Monument on a tour day.
The HPR was homesteaded in the 1870s by the Blair family. One of the early owners of the ranch was George Preston Hughes who, at the age of 24, rode a bicycle from Centerville, Iowa to Dillon, Montana where he established a successful retail store. In 1918 George and his wife, Lillie May Oliver, purchased a ranch in the northeast corner of the Horse Prairie Valley. This ranch, the HPR, was described in the History of Beaverhead County, Volume I---1800---1920, as "remote from the main traveled roads, offered seclusion and spectacular mountain scenery. The high-mountain meadows produced an abundance of native hay with a constant supply of irrigation water from Painter Creek". The HPR today has the same charm and spirit that it had in the early 1900s when it was enjoyed by the Hughes’ family. It is truly one of the most genuine and authentic working cattle ranches that will accommodate guests.
The Horse Prairie Valley and the HPR are located in Beaverhead County, Montana’s largest (5, 619 square miles) county, in the southwest corner of the State. Beaverhead County is the bastion of historic, tightly held, large cattle ranches (average ranch size is nearly 7,000 acres), with fewer than 1.4 persons per square mile. Beaverhead County is not the home of Hollywood and dude ranches; rather, it is the home of one of America’s last genuine working ranch communities (the real endangered species) in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.
Beaverhead County is located between the Centennial Range on the south and the Beaverhead Range on the west, both of which are part of the Great Divide, separating Idaho and southwest Montana. On the north border of Beaverhead County the Big Hole River separates the County from Deer Lodge, Silver Bow, and Madison counties. Beaverhead County is comprised mostly of range and forest lands. The geography of the County has been described as a collection of short mountain ranges, separated by linear valleys and broad basins. Altitudes range from 5,000 feet along the valley basin floors to 11,000 feet or more at Mt. Tweedy in the central Pioneer Mountains. The main rivers in Beaverhead County are the Beaverhead and Big Hole rivers, both of which eventually drain into the Jefferson River, which eventually becomes the Missouri River. The climate of Beaverhead County ranges from rare 100 degree days in the summer to rare -50 degrees in the winter. The summer breezes are exhilarating. The Horse Prairie Valley has one of the milder climates in Beaverhead County.
Getting Here...
Directions to the Horse Prairie Ranch. Visitors to the HPR can fly into either Butte, Montana (Delta) or Idaho Falls, Idaho. Butte is approximately 1˝ hours from the HPR and Idaho Falls is approximately 2 hours from the HPR. The HPR is accessed via I-15 at the Clark Canyon Dam Exit 44. After exiting I-15, take Montana State Highway 324 and head north west toward the town of Grant (in the direction of Salmon, Idaho). As you approach Grant look for the one-room school house -- otherwise you might miss Grant! Continue past Grant for approximately 2.2 miles, until you come to a County gravel/dirt road that turns right only. Take this road for approximately 2.3 miles until you get to a road that turns left at a group of mailboxes. Turn left at the mailboxes and travel to the "end of the road". You will travel through the headquarters of the HPR (large red barn) and on to the HPR guest cabins (green roofs) at Lakeside, which is located about 2 miles beyond the HPR headquarters area (red barn).
NOTE: Free airport pickup at the Butte, MT airport only.
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Horse Prairie Ranch Website
hpr@ranchlife.com
