Town & Country Travel Magazine
"Casting About in Colorado"
Writer/editor Janet Carlson Freed of Town & country's new travel magazine gives fly fishing, hiking and horseback riding experiences at Smith Fork Ranch.

I've just come back to my cabin, depleted by a grueling stint of late-afternoon fly-fishing on the upper pond at Smith Fork Ranch in Colorado, and I've sacked out on the bed for a rest before dinner. My eyes are shut and I'm trying to doze, but I see filament swishing hypnotically back and forth in candy-cane loops across my eyelids. The mesmerizing action of casting and the excitement of catching my first fish ever have enervated me, and the July heat is stifling, so I an content to lie here and imagine telling the tale back home: I caught the big one.

Cherie Cooksey, a Smith Fork Ranch wrangler, leads a mule from the stable before a trek.

Angling master Jin Choi, my guide, told me to say that-I swear. He measured my brown trout on the bank at seventeen inches before we released the gasping fellow, but when I was reporting the size back at the lodge, he urged me to "go ahead and say eighteen," as if that were what experienced fishers routinely do. I see I have a lot to learn. By now I know I'm in good hands at this luxury guest ranch on the edge of the Gunnison National Forest in the Rockies, midway between Aspen and Telluride. Jin, an athletic young man who has twelve years of fishing experience, is a patient, intelligent teacher with a sense of humor, a trait that comes in handy with novices like me. He didn't flinch when I disturbed the serene ecosystem by squealing as he took my slimy, wriggling fish from his net and placed it in my hands. Evidently I not only squealed but leaped into the air from the proper crouching position and pirouetted up the bank in fright and revulsion. A couple of serious experts close by joked, "We'll pretend this didn't happen," but I wasn't embarrassed. Who ever said I have to enjoy touching a fish? Jin said we'll work on that tomorrow. I appreciate that the ranch's welcoming, unpretentious atmosphere allows me to bungle along at my own pace.


I give up trying to nap in favor of seeing what's up around the ranch. I walk from my cozy little one-bedroom cabin, called Spruce, along a path bordered by lawns to the main building, the original log hunting lodge. (The property was a guest ranch owned by the Ferriers, a local family, from the late 1930s through the 1970s.) In back of the lodge, facing tall grass, quaking aspens and the West Elk Mountains in the distance, is the Pavilion, a canvas-roofed, open-air deck-the hub of the ranch. Midmorning, guests just finished with a fly-fishing clinic or an early hike or ride stop here to pour themselves a glass of fresh lemonade from the jug and grab a handful of local yellow cherries from the continually replenished bowl on the side table.

What to Bring, What to Buy There Take a fleece jacket for cool evenings, polarized sunglasses for detecting fish shadows in the water-regular sunglasses won't do the trick-and waterproof boots for wading in streams (Simms is the best brand; you can borrow a pair at the ranch). If you're passing through Denver, you can buy a snap-front Western shirt at Rockmount Ranch Wear, the legendary shop whose 103-year-old founder, Jack A. Weil, still works on the premises. Or you can pick one up at the ranch. Smith Fork sells cowboy hats, terminal tackle, flies and other essentials and also makes available Sage fly rods, reels and waders.

This evening there's no sign of other guests yet, but I meet up with the ranch's owners, Linda and Marley Hodgson, Jr. In 2000 they bought the then broken-down 280-acre property nestling in nearly a million acres of uninhabited national forest and mountain wilderness. Linda says she and Marley phoned their son, Marley III, an expert fly fisher, and said, "We found this really interesting piece of the working West, and it's got a river running through it!" The Smith Fork of the Gunnison River, to be precise. The Hodgsons restored the ranch, spiffed it up with highquality design touches and landscaped the front entrance, leaving the rest of the grounds wild, then opened for business two years ago.

Today, Smith Fork-with its ranch house, which sleeps ten, and four cabins, which accommodate from two to six, for a total of twenty-eight guests-is one of just six Abercrombie & Kent ranch properties in the United States. (When I visited, the fourth cabin was only in the planning stages. The three-bedroom hideaway is now completed and, I'm told, looks as if it had been there eighty years. The Hodgsons used old logs and old-fashioned building methods though the hot tub on the deck, which overlooks the river, is a giveaway.)

Sitting in Adirondack chairs, we sip Sauvignon Blanc and watch the sun lower over Needle Rock, a 1,074-foot local landmark, casting a pink glow clear over to the east so unbelievably pretty it's like an amateur painting. I learn some lore from the charming couple, who live part of the year in New York, part of it on their sixty-foot Herreshoff schooner, out of Newport, and the rest right here.

"We love this area because it's pure, undiscovered cattle country," says Marley Jr., who founded Ghurka, the leather-goods company, in 1975. "It's never had a railroad boom or mining or skiing, as Aspen has. The closest town, about seven miles away, is Crawford, population 366. This part of the West Elk Wilderness is the least-used wilderness area in the state of Colorado."

Guests don't rough it here, though. "They experience the rustic West, only with modern comforts," says Linda. My cabin for-two is small but lovingly appointed with American antiques and crafts pieces from the area. The wonderful slate-tiled bathroom has a locally custom-made bowl-in-washstand sink.

"We want our guests to leave here feeling as though they'd been guests at a family's private ranch," Marley Jr. adds. It does feel that way to me, in part because the whole family works here; the Hodgsons' two children, Marley, thirty-one, and Lindsay, twenty-eight, pitch in sometimes as cohosts when their work schedules permit. The younger Hodgsons are omnipresent, attending to guests' needs, and Marley III occasionally serves as a fishing guide.


Some meals are served at the Dinner Bell Cook House, a cabin-style dining hall original to the property that Marley Jr. went to amazing lengths to restore-with exposed-log walls; wagon-wheel chandeliers; chestnut tables with half-round log edging inspired by 1920s designer Thomas Molesworth; and booths, from a Berlin delicatessen, that Marley Jr. refurbished with calf-hide siding by Ghurka. In warm weather, though, guests dine outdoors in the Pavilion. There's no menu; award-winning chef Bob Isaacson, formerly of the Little Nell, in Aspen, decides what to serve for each meal. His cuisine is haute Western, based mostly on the fare locally available; the nearby North Fork Valley is known as the garden center of Colorado.

Tonight, by the light of imposing antler chandeliers and trout-silhouette sconces, the Hodgsons and I sit down to crab cakes with avocado salsa, followed by velvety elk steaks and roasted sweet potatoes. Marley Jr., a wine connoisseur, orders a 2001 Elyse Zinfandel and reminds us to drink plenty of water because of the altitude: 7,100 feet. (Unsuspecting guests may get dehydration headaches, especially if they don't accept the water bottles constantly offered by the staff.) For dessert there's apple-cherry strudel topped with homemade ice cream.

After dinner I savor a particularly unfamiliar luxury for a New Yorker: the utter quiet and dark of the night. Sleep comes easily--a good thing, since fishing starts early. And so do all the other activities the Hodgsons provide to ensure that their guests have a well-rounded visit. "There are plenty of ranches that are more stereotypically dude ranches," says Marley Jr. "We try to offer a balance." Yes, there's riding, but there's also great fishing, challenging hiking, and the whole rest of the Western experience, including rodeos, skeet shooting, local craftspeople and the Cherry Days festival July 1 through 4) in nearby Paonia. The ranch has a stable of thirty-one horses and four mules and conducts guided excursions on the hundreds of miles of riding and hiking trails in the hills and up into the high, Colorado spruce-covered mountains, which are often snowcapped through early July.

Smith Fork Ranch is the kind of place where you might find a Cabinet secretary appreciating the remoteness (yet trying, comically and in vain, to get a cell phone to work in the woods) or see Napa Valley vintners dropping in on their own jets to visit their friend Marley III. Guests also include financiers, entertainment executives and sporting families-even the occasional honeymooners, who take dinner on the deck of their cabin. (The rest dine privately or with other guests, as they wish, at the Pavilion.) Some evenings, people sit together after dinner to listen to performances by a local band or to SFR's own wranglers sing cowboy ballads.

The ranch prides itself on customizing each day for every guest. The first real cowboy I've encountered in my life, Chuck Gunther, ranch manager and head of the horse program, sees to that. I'm captivated by this genuine character in denim, black cowboy hat and well-worn boots, sporting a handlebar mustache. Chuck is weathered, agile and quiet, as all true cowboys are supposed to be. One of his skills is in discreetly discovering each morning what guests would like to do that day. Chuck's wife, Kerry, manages the front office, and together they make all things possible with the help of some fifteen in staff.

"What's on your mind for today?" Chuck asks sleepy-eyed Andrew, who's just come into the Dinner Bell for breakfast. Andrew, an English adman living in Greenwich, Connecticut, is here with his wife and two children, as well as Mike-his friend and a fellow Brit-and Mike's family. This big group returned yesterday from an overnight horseback trek, guided by Chuck, up to 9,000 feet, where they camped in elaborately outfitted tents and had dinner under the stars (a ranch chef went along to prepare the meals). "Riding, please," Andrew says, and it's done. I hear that the two families' six children left with a guide at the crack of dawn to go river rafting.

After a quick breakfast of quiche, hash browns and bacon, I myself take off on an early-morning excursion, to Mendicant Ridge Elk Ranch-a trip the Hodgsons offer to all guests in case they care to meet the great brown-eyed beasts one of whose relatives they likely dined on the night before. Inside the enclosure where the elk roam on dry, rocky terrain and calmly approach visitors, I'm aware that squealing in these circumstances would be hazardous, so I stay quiet while proffering the treats farm owner Ed Bliss has handed me. Calaloo, the thousand-pound, eight-foot-tallieader of the herd, looks like a giant sweetie, but I'm told not to make eye contact or I'll be skewered against the high fence. Okay. Nice elk.

Fly-fishing Instruction at SFR If you're a seasoned fly fisher, you'LL be thrilled by the possibilities at Smith Fork. "On the Gunnison in June is arguabLy the best saLmonfly hatch in the nation," says the younger MarLey. And unlike at some ranches, where you have to get in a car and drive to the river, here the fishing is right on the property. Beginners and intermediates can participate in informaL fly-fishing clinics on the front Lawn. (The ranch offers fly-tying clinics as weLL, in the main Lodge.) I attended a clinic my first morning, casting for an hour and a half under Jin's watchfuL eye and working on the metronomic rhythm until my hands ached from hoLding the rod too tight. As happens with most guests, I graduated to the pond that afternoon; the next day my instruction continued on the river. Jin and MarLey worked wonders with my basic casting motion and showed me how to make a shorter cast to avoid snagging trees, how to spy fish Lurking near rocks and how to cast a few feet upstream to get the fly to drift enticingly.

Later that morning, I follow Mike and Jin to one of the seven ponds on the ranch property. I've chosen not to fish today but to undertake relaxation. I see that Mike's wife, Randi, has done the same; she's already in the hammock slung between two trees at the pond's edge, reading a book. I find a small dock at the far end and practice doing nothing. I enjoy watching Mike, on his forward cast, lean his whole body optimistically toward imagined trout while Jin scans the water for shadows. During a break, Mike tells me why he likes fly-fishing: "I'm an impatient person. Fishing teaches patience. You learn to accept the
frustrations, like snagging trees, as part of the game. And it's something to do alone, not in company. You get your own piece of water and space for casting. You may come with friends, but you fish alone."

His appreciation of the sport calls to mind writer Thomas McGuane's description of its mystique; "Angling is extremely time consuming. That's sort of the whole point." I suppose most guests have little opportunity back home for such solitude or for simply passing the time; space and time are luxuries we pursue here, where only the dragonflies are really busy.

Back at the ranch at the end of the day, the pace picks up, curiously enough. I join the British contingent for the weekly "cocktail horseback trek." I'm even less experienced with horses than with fish or elk, but Chuck and the other wranglers are so calm and encouraging it's easy to overcome my nerves, throw a leg over the saddle and act like a cowgirl.

We ride in single file along a well-trodden path winding up the dry brown hillside to a beautiful clearing on a mountaintop. You can see all the way to Utah. The staff have set up beer, wine and cheese, and they now tie our horses to trees. Randi tells me that her family is having a superb visit. The skies open up, and as we don black slickers and welcome the cooling rain, she continues, "The only thing I'd suggest they add is one room that has airconditioning, for these sweltering summer days. And a pool would be nice." The ranch won't be installing a pool, Linda later tells me, because "that's not in keeping with the real Western ranch experience. But we have just converted the upper pond to a swimming hole, complete with zip line for scooting across and plunging into the water."

We ride back down the mountain to the riverside, where Maggie Hiegert, the assistant chef, has begun grilling steaks for a cookout. After dinner and a game of horseshoes, we're helped to mount up again, and Andrew says, "It's like TiVo here: You get only the highlights, only the good parts. Your line gets tangled in a tree, a guide gets it out; your fly picks up some algae, he takes it off. You get off your horse, someone takes it for you." He seems delighted to be spoiled like this. I know Jin will make me touch the algae, though.

The next day, I fish with Jin, young Marley and his wife, Jennifer. Unlike Andrew, I'm glad to be doing more things for myself; maybe next time I come, I'll learn to tie a fly, meanwhile, I love wading in waterproof boots in the raging river. Finding my balance fairly well on the slippery rocks, I feel invincible-until we hear a crashing sound in the tall brush along the bankjust ahead and Marley says it's a bear. We take a closer look. I swear he was fifteen feet tall.

Smith Fork Ranch is open from late May through October, July and August, minimum stay of seven days; $2,600 per adult, $1,990 per child three to twelve. At other times, minimum stay of three days; $1,160 per adult, $880 per child. 970-921-3454; smithforkranch.com. All inclusive packages can be booked through Abercrombie & Kent; 800-554-7094

June 2004