The Canadian River Ranch is located about 65 miles northwest of Amarillo, Texas. There are no public roads through the ranch and no adjoining landowners have access easements through any portion of the property. There is only one entrance to the ranch, and this entrance gate can be locked offering the maximum in privacy and security.

The ranch is about an hour’s drive from Amarillo, but for the owner’s convenience, the headquarter improvements are equipped with a 4,500 foot paved private landing strip which is capable of handling private jet traffic.

The centerpiece of the Canadian River Ranch is approximately 29 miles of the winding Canadian River, which essentially runs through the center of the property from west to east. The terrain of the ranch is greatly influenced by the meanderings and numerous horseshoe bends of the river. Elevations throughout the ranch range from 3,800 feet on the elevated uplands and mesa tops to approximately 3,400 feet in the river bottom.

The southeast corner of the property, which is where the main headquarters, landing strip and entrance to the ranch are located, has a fairly level to gently rolling appearance. Other portions of the ranch are also fairly level to rolling on benches and flats above the river, but the terrain over much of the property becomes sloping and broken as the upland areas drain towards the Canadian. Numerous good live water creeks and springs are found throughout the ranch.

The numerous mesa tops, ridges, arroyos, canyons and creek bottoms offer a pleasing, extremely scenic, very diverse terrain. On the eastern two-thirds of the ranch, the Canadian River bottom is wide and fertile with high rimrock mesas towering above the river bottom floor. On the western third, the soils are sandy natured on the north side of the river, and the elevation change is not as dramatic. This undulating sandhill country comprises approximately 12,000 acres and is described as a tall grass prairie with scattered sage, sumac, cholla and wild plum. The remainder of the ranch is a blend of clay and sandy loam soils interspersed with gravelly hillsides, ridges, and broken high rocky side slopes elevating to the mesas and uplands.

Conservation Easement

In an effort to perpetuate and conserve the scenic open space of this vast property and its many unique features, in 2001, the owner of the property entered into a carefully planned and researched conservation easement covering a major portion of the ranch. Three critical working areas of the property are not included in the conservation easement, being approximately 774 acres surrounding the main headquarters, 71.5 acres at the manager’s home/shop/main shipping pens, and 6.4 acres surrounding the scenic Trujillo Camp. The actual conservation easement itself encompasses 70,207 acres, and the easement holder is the Parks and Wildlife Foundation of Texas, Inc. This is the largest Conservation Easement in the State of Texas. As stated in the Conservation Easement Document, “The Property possesses natural, scenic, open space, historical, cultural and educational values (collectively, ‘conservation values’) of great importance to Grantor and the people of the State of Texas.” This document goes on to state that the purpose of the Conservation Easement is, “To assure that the Property will be retained forever predominately in its natural condition and to prevent any use of the Property that will significantly impair or interfere with the conservation values of the Property”.

Major specifics of this Conservation Easement include:
• No subdivision of the property
• Maximum of twelve additional water wells, or a total of forty-five
• No commercial timber harvesting, except sale of mesquite wood
• No commercial mining of sand, gravel, rock, etc.
• No conveyance of commercial water rights
• Hunting rights may be leased to outside parties, but no commercial hunting with outfitters/guides
• Ranch operation shall not exceed 5,000 animal units, or more than one animal unit per 14 acres

In addition to the actual Conservation Easement itself, a separate report, known as the Baseline Documentation Report was created to describe in detail the historical and geological features of the Canadian River Ranch.

For those desiring detailed information regarding the Conservation Easement, copies of the easement itself and the Baseline Documentation Report are available, on request.