The word “sapphire” undoubtedly conjures up visions of sultans and sabers – it’s a gem that’s found in many places around the world, but there isn’t a sapphire anywhere in the world more beautiful – more sought after – more valuable than the Yogo.

Tossed aside by gold seekers in Yogo City, Montana, during the gold rush of the late 1800s, it was mountain man Jake Hoover who placed some of those cornflower blue pebbles in a cigar box and sent them to New York’s Tiffany & Co. around 1895.  Experts immediately recognized the Yogo’s nearly flawless beauty, clarity and color.  They sent Hoover a check for $3,700 dollars with a request to “keep them coming”.

Though several mining operations have had great to minimal success in the area since then, it remains a very limited mining operation despite the fact that the value of the Yogo Sapphire has risen steadily.  In today’s gem markets around the world, the Yogo fetches more than the finest diamonds and the area near Utica, known as Sapphire Village, attracts its share of rock hounds and treasure-seekers.

The colorations of the Yogo Sapphire vary from magenta hues of blue through cornflower.  It’s an extremely hard gem – the only thing harder in all of nature is the diamond.  The Yogo will scratch the hardest glass and even a small, flat Yogo can be transformed into a beautiful and valuable piece of jewelry.

The Yogo has earned its name as “The Great American Sapphire” and has taken its place beside South Africa’s diamonds, Columbia’s Emeralds and Burma’s Rubies.  Today Montana’s Yogo Sapphire is often considered more beautiful than any diamond, emerald or ruby and each day the Yogo becomes more valuable to gem-seekers around the world.

Rough Yogo Sapphires

Royal ring given to kate Middleton

The idea for the Judith Gap Wind Farm came from a Big Sandy, Montana farmer in 2000 – by the end of 2005, Invenergy of Chicago had begun operations in an area 12 miles south of Judith Gap, Montana, erecting ninety wind turbines, with all the power produced purchased by Northwest Energy.

The Judith Gap Wind Farm can be seen from 25 miles away – its wind turbines rise 262 feet above the ground, each topped with the housing for a 1.5 megawatt generator.  Each has three 126-foot fiberglass blades – the tip of each blade rising to 400-feet above the ground.  The blades are designed to begin to spin when winds reach 6 miles per hour – they start generating power at 7.8 mph.  At 33 mph they reach maximum electrical production with blade speed reaching 230 mph.  When winds reach 56 miles per hour, the turbines automatically shut down to protect the blades from spinning too fast.

According to the wind power map for Montana, the Judith Gap Wind Farm is in Class 4 and Class 5 wind areas, with an average wind speed of 15.7 to 17.9 mph at 50 meters above the ground.  In its short history, this wind farm has shown an average spin rate between 10 and 20 mph.

With a 1.5 megawatt generator, each tower provides enough electricity to power 350 to 400 homes.  In full production, the 90 towers can produce as much as 135 megawatts or about 8% of the total power provided by Northwest Energy.

Tours of the turbines and the Judith Gap Wind Farm can be arranged through Invenergy’s site manager and more information about the project is available at “Blade Park” in Judith Gap, where a full-sized turbine blade is on permanent display.

An aerial view of the Wind Farm

A single blade located at Blade Park

Montana is a state teeming with fishing locations – and fishing vacation spots, including Central Montana and the Judith River Basin.  The headwaters of the famous Judith River are located on the Circle Bar Guest Ranch in Utica, Montana, where you can rent a comfortable riverside cabin and enjoy a fishing vacation in some of the most beautiful country in Montana.  The Judith is home to very large and healthy populations of native Rainbow, Cutthroat and Brook trout as well as Brown trout.

If you want more rugged or remote terrain for your Montana fishing vacation, just upstream you will find the South and Middle Forks of the Judith, located in the Lewis & Clark National Forest.  Further downstream, the Judith has some warm-water fishing varieties, like catfish, but many more warm-water fish, like Northern Pike, Walleye and Perch are found in abundance in nearby lakes, streams and creeks – most of these fishing spots are very easily accessible.

The key to fishing the Judith – experiment with your files.  All of the standard flies and nymphs will work, depending on the season, and hoppers are a great choice in this area in early July.  The approach and presentation will make the difference fishing the Judith.  It’s said that long, wimpy tippets, a slow and steady approach, and a solid presentation will give you a shot at landing some very large trout found in the Judith and upstream.

The Circle Bar Guest Ranch has some gear available and a variety of fishing products made in Montana at Yellowstone Fly Goods, of Billings, Montana, and there are several places in nearby Lewistown that have a wide variety. Montana fishing licenses are available at several locations close to the Circle Bar.

If you are looking for a fishing vacation in Montana, The Circle Bar Guest Ranch offers great food and accommodations, and both daily and weekly rates.

And don’t forget to bring along the non-fishing members of the family – there’s lots to do besides fishing – there’s horseback riding, hiking, sapphire-hunting, great shopping and sightseeing.  Fishing in Montana is just part of a great Big Sky Vacation and Western experience.

Fly Fishing in Montana

The Montana cowboy vacation, like the one offered at the Circle Bar Guest Ranch, always includes great horseback riding, a chance to be part of a true Western cattle drive, and an opportunity to enjoy the very best Montana has to offer – great horseback riding, the best food in the West, blue-ribbon trout fishing right out your back door, open meadows, mountains, coulees and thousands of acres of forestland.

Many cowboy vacations that offer horseback riding in Montana will keep you nose-to-tail while you ride – but at the Circle Bar Guest Ranch, wide-open riding is encouraged, taking advantage of Montana’s open country, the majestic Little Belt Mountains, riding horseback alongside and often crossing the historic Judith River, and enjoying miles and miles of open trails through some of the most spectacular country Montana has to offer.

If you’re interested in horseback riding in Montana or a Montana cattle drive, and you’ve never visited the West, you will be astonished at just how big Montana is – it’s big country, Big Sky Country, and the view of the horizon goes on forever.

You can saddle up at the Circle Bar Guest Ranch and head out for a horseback ride that will take you places you would never reach by car – an ancient Ice Cave, Indian pictographs, a ghost town, an old gold, silver or sapphire mine – it’s all here and all part of a great cowboy vacation.  It isn’t just about horseback riding here in Montana – it’s about everything from the cattle drive to Dutch-oven cooking, campfire stories to a friendly team-penning competition.

Take a dip in a crystal-clear mountain stream, hike through country that is as unspoiled as it was one-hundred years ago.  After a good, long day on the trail, dust off your jeans, take off your boots, grab a cold drink and relax by the campfire under a star-filled Montana sky.  This is one of the last great All-American vacations – horseback riding in Montana at the Circle Bar Guest Ranch.

Heading out for a ride!

The love affair with the Cowboy began about the time of the Great American Cattle Drive, though the Western cattle drive was not the first of its’ kind. The cowboy and the cattle drive really date back to 16^th Century Europe, and on this continent – Mexico in the 1540s, where they had thecattle drive and what we know as cowboys, were “vaqueros”. Today, the cattle drive in states like Montana, is much shorter. The cattle drive in Montana and elsewhere are more often used to promote the American Western lifestyle.  Working cattle ranches, dude ranches and guest ranches in Montana and other western states often seize the cattle drive as a way to bring a little “cowboy” and the Old West to anyone wanting to get a glimpse at the American frontier and learn a bit about the cowboy lifestyle in places like Montana, where the cowboy rules.

The days of the true cattle drive – with the cowboy sometimes moving a herd of 2 to 3000 head up to 1000 miles to market, had its’ heyday between 1866 and 1886, when demand for beef in the East meant the average cowboy had to move herds from Texas to new rail heads in places like Abilene and Dodge City, Kansas.  From there they could be shipped to stockyards andpacking plants in Chicago and points east.

The early cattle drive would employ 15 to 20 cowboys, or drovers as they were known; a wrangler, who took care of the 7 to 10 horses each cowboy would need; a cook, who was in charge of the cowboy chuck wagon and often handled practical medicine as well; and the trail boss. Back in those days, cowboy wages for a cattle drive in nearly every state from Montana to Texas was about $40 dollars a month, paid when the cowboy and his cattle drive delivered and sold its’ herd.  On the typical cattle drive, there was a fine balance between speed and animal weight loss. The cowboy could cover no more than 12 to 15 miles a day in order to ensure a good payday at the end of the cattle drive.  With as much as 6 or 800 miles or more to travel on a typical cattle drive, often taking cattle from Texas to Kansas – Oregon to Montana – the entire cattle drive might take as much as four months to complete.

When that cowboy brought the herd into “cow towns” that sprung up across the West, the cowboy would be paid up and let loose after long periods of abstinence of every kind. Violence and the unbridled spirit of the cowboy also signaled the need for a new “peace officer” – the town marshal. Two of the most famous cow town marshals – Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok.

With the invention of barbed wire to protect individual ranches from the open range, widespread settlement in the West, and new rail lines that brought the rail heads to places in Montana and other states across the West, 1895 marked the end of the big cattle drive and the end of established trails that held the Great American Cattle Drive, like the famous Chisholm and Goodnight-Loving Trails.  But for Montana and other states in the Old West, the end of the big cattle drive did not come before the cowboy and his cattle drive gave the American West its’ character and forever glorified and immortalized the American Cowboy around the world.

The smaller cattle drive continued into the 1940s because the cowboy still needed to get his herd to local rail heads for transport to stockyards andpacking plants elsewhere.  For the cowboy, the modern-day cattle truck signaled the end for even the smaller cattle drive. Today, in places like Montana, the cattle drive is primarily used to allow a ranch cowboy to round up the herd on a single ranch, or to move his herd from one pasture to another, so today’s cattle drive seldom takes the cowboy more than a day or two at best.

The romantic tradition associated with the American Cowboy and the cattle drive, embellished and dramatized in books and on the big screen, is still a lot of fun for anyone interested in a taste of the Old West.  Many guest ranch vacations in Montana and across the West include horseback riding, a smaller cattle drive or cattle work – and a chance for people from all over the world to meet a real American cowboy and participate in the cattle drive most have seen only in the movies.  In Montana and elsewhere across the West, working cattle ranches often invite guests to ride along while the herd is moved from winter to summer or summer to winter pasture – taking part in the only true cattle drive left in the West.  In states like Montana, it provides for a great dude ranch vacation, horseback riding alongside a Great American Cowboy, and also provides for some extra income and a little extra help for hard-working ranchers in states like Montana.

Though the cowboy of old often spent 12 to 15 hours in the saddle each day on a typical cattle drive, today’s cattle drive is smaller, the day is shorter and the food’s better.  But it still gives the guest ranch visitor in Montana and elsewhere, a chance to be a cowboy for a week, take part in a Western cattle drive, and enjoy the wide open spaces and spectacular vistas found in places like Montana and across the American West.

Nothing like bringing in the heard!

The fourth largest state, after Alaska, Texas and California, Montana actually has more elk, antelope and deer than humans – the entire state has less than a million people – that’s only about 6 people per square mile!

Though lots of folks associate Montana with Yellowstone National Park, the most-visited place in the state is actually Glacier National Park, where you can visit the only “triple divide” in the country.  Triple Divide Peak is a spot where water flows in three directions – to the Atlantic, the Pacific and to Hudson Bay.

Montana has the largest Grizzly Bear population in the lower 48 states and the largest migratory elk herd in the U.S.. It is home to Loons, Trumpeter Swans, Pelicans, Golden and Bald Eagles, Bobcat, Moose, Mountain Lion and Black Bear.

Though it’s often been called “The Treasure State”, after gold was discovered in 1862, the gold rush was replaced by silver in the late 1870s.  But those in search of precious gems could never have imagined that the most precious of all the world’s sapphires – the Yogo Sapphire – would be discovered in the Judith Basin, in Central Montana.  A beautiful cornflower blue gemstone, the Yogo Sapphire, found only in Central Montana, is the only North America gemstone included in the British Crown Jewels.

Montanans tend to be a fiercely independent people – Jeanette Rankin, the first woman ever elected to Congress, was a Montanan.  Stuntman Evel Knievel was born in Montana, as were actors Gary Cooper, George Montgomery, Patrick Duffy, Myrna Loy, Martha Raye and Michelle Williams. Journalist Chet Huntley was born in Montana, comedian Dana Carvey, former Green Bay Packer Jerry Kramer, LA Lakers coach Phil Jackson and speed cyclist Levi Leipheimer.

For sheer beauty, there are few places in the world that compare to Montana’s wide open spaces, spectacular mountains and pristine rivers and streams. Whether you’re looking for one of the country’s most popular National Parks, a dude ranch vacation, a real-life cattle drive, a great fly-fishing spot or just some unmatched western hospitality “the Cowboy Way” – nothing comes close to a visit to the 41st state,  Montana.

The Big Sky State

Western culture and adventure
Montana
Events in Western Montana
Events at the Circle Bar Ranch

These are just some ideas but if you have an idea for something that relates to Western ranches or lifestyle feel free to let us know. We will try to please our blog readers the best we can.

Send comments and suggestions to contact@circlebarguestranch.com

Happy Trails!

We will be posting some interesting and informative articles here for you and we hope that you enjoy. Please feel free to comment on the posts and add any additional  information that may be helpful to other readers.

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