Colorado getaway
Ancient farm offers visitors rich history, wine

By Eric Toll, March 2011
Staff Writer

Photo by Eric Toll

Ming Adams puts the finishing touches on supper for weary travelers.

Her long dark hair drifting over her shoulder, petite Ming Adams strokes the feathers on a plump quietly clucking hen with one hand and reaches under with the other, withdrawing a brown egg. Gently placing it in the basket resting on the fresh sawdust floor, she nestles the basket into the crook of one arm, smiles and holds up one of the larger eggs and says, “Breakfast up at the house.”

The ‘house’ is the adobe, new sustainably-constructed rammed earth ranch home of Garry and Ming Adams, overlooking their 2,000 acres at Canyon of the Ancients Guest Ranch outside of Cortez, Colo.

“We put the house on top of this hill to be able to take in the views up and down the canyon,” explains Garry, wearing overalls and a safari-style cap complete with khaki neck covering drooping over his collar.

Walking on the dirt road, I take a deep breath of the crisp Four Corners air. A potpourri of fragrances are in the air—fresh flowers from Ming’s hummingbird garden, newly cut hay in the field down by McElmo Creek and very light in the background, a fragrant reminder that this is a working ranch.

The chickens range next to Pioneer House and a few steps from the doors of the historic Elden Zwicker Stone House and Cowboy Log Cabin.

“The cowboy cabin was the original house on the spread back in the 1800s,” says Garry. “We kept the exterior intact and added a kitchenette and pebbled shower stall.”

Remodeled between 2008 and 2010, furnished with antiques and rustic furniture, the three guest cabins hold from two to six people. Joining the trio in 2010, the Adams built the ancestral pueblo-style Mokee House Cottage house for up to five people adjoining the main ranch house on the hilltop. Staying at Canyon of the Ancients Guest Ranch puts visitors in the middle of McElmo Canyon and the western stretch of Mesa Verde Country.

The center of Mesa Verde Country, Cortez, Colo. is the crossroads of the Trail of the Ancients National Historic Byway, the only designated archaeology byway in the U.S. The 500-mile, two-state Trail travels through the Four Corners cities of Dove Creek, Dolores and Mancos, the Ute Mountain Reservation capitol, Towoac, and winds through forests for hunting, fishing, rafting, canoeing and agritourism. Portions of the Ute and Navajo Nations and more than 10,000 archaeological sites, including over 1,000 cliff dwellings and ancient pueblos, are wrapped inside the Trail.

Meandering on County Road G west just before the Utah State Line, I stopped at the historic Ismay Trading Post. Looking as abandoned as the rusted hulks around it, the bright, new “Open” sign seems out of place. A small bell tinkled as the door closed behind me. Wearing jeans and a long-sleeved pale brown western shirt, Robert Ismay sauntered from the backroom and smiled. With a wood-burning stove set in the center, a U-shaped display counter separated me from the variety of merchandise, ranging from canned goods, some fresh fruit, to household utensils and auto parts and a collection of original Navajo pottery and rugs. Asking Ismay about the history of the trading post, most answers were “yup,” “nope” or just a smile. The post has served Navajo families as post office, grocery and consignment since the 1930s.

I asked to see one of the small pots locked in the venerable dusty glass and wood display counter.

“It’s by Nancy Chilly,” he drawled in the longest sentence spoken since I walked into the store. “She brings in some from time-to-time to trade for supplies.”

Opened by the Ismay brothers, Robert continues to run the trading post even after his brother’s passing a decade ago. His sister owns the next trading post down the road at Hatch, Utah. Outside the trading post, a mound of broken glass sparkles in the sun.

“Surveyor’s hill,” explains Mesa Verde Country tourism director, Lynn Dyer. “Surveyors working this area would come to the trading post to buy a cold drink. When emptied, the bottles were tossed over there and just kept piling up.”

Just west of Ismay across the Utah line, Mesa Verde Country turns north towards Hovenweep National Monument. The five ancestral canyon head villages were agriculture centers built hundreds of years before European arrival. Water was captured in a sophisticated system of dams and ditches and used to irrigate terraces for corn, beans, squash and other plants sustaining ancestral Pueblo populations. The villages were occupied until the early 1200s when the populations migrated south closer to the San Juan River. The National Monument is broken into five communities. Square Tower, next to the Visitor Center, is accessible with a paved walkway to a canyon overlook. A well-maintained rock and dirt trail circles and enters the canyon allowing visitors to walk through the pueblo remains.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Ming bustles in the kitchen making lunch at Canyon of the Ancients. Retracing the route through McElmo Canyon, Garry quickly shoos us into their house for the waiting-to-be-served midday feast. Home-butchered beef with her home garden vegetables are complemented by biscuits baked in the outdoor adobe hornos and gravy. Fresh fruit dessert pies complete the feast.

Back on County Road G, we wind our way up-canyon to the Four Corners wine country east of the Adams’ ranch.
“People who don’t like chardonnay like this wine,” explains Ruth Drew, pouring their unoaked chardonnay into several tasting glasses for people seated at the counter and the Drew’s kitchen table. “This is pure chardonnay without any accoutrements to blemish its taste.”

Drew’s home kitchen doubles as their tasting room, and she opens some newly bottled Meritage from a bottle next to the sink to pour for a red wine lover.

“This is a blend creating an American Bordeaux,” she explains. “Only wines bottled in Bordeaux from local grapes can be called ‘Bordeaux.’ ‘Meritage’ is what it’s being called domestically.”

The sampling is capped with one of my favorite wines, a Gewürztraminer from the grapevines I’m viewing across the driveway outside the kitchen window.

Satiated with the wine sampling, it’s time to head towards town. In Mesa Verde Country, it’s possible to eat your way through the area’s small, family organic farms and stands dotting the landscape and selling fresh seasonal produce and from-the-tree fruit. Consolidating the effort, the Cortez Seasonal Saturday Farmer’s Market opens at 7:30 in the Courthouse parking lot bringing many of the small growers together. Supplemented with homemade pastries, locally-roasted coffees and site cooked foods, the market is a walking restaurant. Munch on healthy and tasty foods, stroll past original crafts booths, enjoy live music and turn the market from shopping excursion into a small festival.

“We’re really proud of the agricultural heritage here,” Lynn Dyer smiles with pride while pointing to the more than three dozen agribusinesses on the “Touch the Past, Touch the Plenty” agricultural adventures map distributed by the Visitor’s Bureau. “We’ve been an agricultural center for more than 1,400 years. The ancestral Pueblos grew corn, beans and squash, harvested wild plants. Some of our farms still grow the original ‘Anasazi beans.’”

While home gardeners go ga-ga over heritage tomatoes dating from colonial times, the Anasazi beans boast a heritage going back over a millennium. Gratefully, I accept a small burlap bag with a selection of the ancient beans descendants to bring home and add to my garden.

Nearly wiped out towards the end of the 1800s, Navajo Churro sheep are being restored to the environment at small ranches near Mancos and Cortez. The wool from these sheep is used both naturally and with natural dyes in world-renowned Navajo blankets and wool clothes. Some of the sheep ranches, like Crabapple Tree Farm west of Mancos, offer tours and an educational talk about the breed restoration.

“Talk is sheep,” giggles former San Diegan Betsy Harriston. “The Churros are a hearty breed, which is important in this climate. Winters are tough up here. My white wools are sent to mills for processing, but a group of Navajo grandmothers from the Gray Hills Chapter House take some of the unprocessed wools and use them in rugs without dye.”

The ewes cluster into small groups and watch warily as we tour the pen and barn. Watching over them is their guardian llama, “more effective than a watch dog keeping out coyotes,” explains Harriston. “He’s big, protective, and nasty.”

“I’m working with the University of Colorado Extension Services to continue this breed,” Harriston continues, “so in the spring I’m a grandmother to many little lambs. Other breeders in this area continue to restock the Churros. Navajo shepherds are also returning these sheep, which is their own breed, to the reservation.”

Other area family ranches raise alpaca, sheep, poultry, beef and eggs. Mesa Verde Country has its own high-country flour mill and sunflower farms where the flowers dance in the summer sun for sunflower oil and biomass energy fuel production northwest of Cortez near Dove Creek.

“With Mesa Verde National Park, we’re an international destination,” comments Dyer. “It makes for a richer experience when visitors extend their Park time to take in the local agriculture. We’re a collection of family farms and agriculturally-oriented businesses. ‘Touch the Past, Touch the Plenty’ lets us demonstrate the variety of ways individuals sustainably make their living from the land.”

Some are Native Americans; some are native to the area; others have come from Denver, San Diego, Chicago, Dallas and back East. All are demonstrating that history does repeat itself, and agricultural production existing more than a thousand years ago now returns to one of the Four Corners—Mesa Verde Country.

Getting to Mesa Verde Country

Cortez is located on the northeast side of the Four Corners region on U.S. Route 160 about four hours from either Interstate Highway 40 or 70. Great Lakes Airlines has two daily scheduled flights from Denver into Cortez Municipal Airport. Grand Junction Regional Airport, just off I-70, is served by Allegiant, American Eagle, Delta Skywest, United Express and US Airways.

Where to Stay

Canyon of the Ancients Guest Ranch, 7986 County Road G, Cortez, CO 81321. 970-565-4288. CanyonOfTheAncients.com.

Canyon_of_the_Ancients@yahoo.com. $250 to $500 per night depending on selected cabin.

Best Western Turquoise Inn & Suites, 535 East Main Street. Cortez, CO 81321-3319. 970-565-3778. BestWesternMesaVerde.com. $79 to $190 per night, varies with season. Pets $15 additional.

Where to Go

Ismay Trading Post. 25 miles west of Cortez Municipal Airport or County Road G. Note, this is a working trading post and not a visitor attraction. If you go in, courtesy calls for a transaction to take place.

Hovenweep National Monument. On Hovenweep Road, 10 miles north of County Road G/Utah Route 128. Turn north on Indian Route 5099 two miles west of Ismay and follow the signs.

Guy Drew Winery, 20657 Road G, 5 miles west of Cortez Municipal Airport.

Crabapple Tree Farm, 38450 Road J5, 8 miles east of Mesa Verde National Park, north of U.S. Route 160.

More information

Mesa Verde Country Visitor Bureau. 800-253-1616. www.MesaVerdeCountry.com.

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