Methow Valley Resort Blocked -- State To Buy Cattle Ranch

Methow Valley real-estate agent Mary Jensen calls it the most rewarding deal she has ever participated in.

She and others helped avert a developer's proposal to make the Big Valley Ranch - 10 miles from the controversial proposed Early Winters ski resort - into a destination resort with condominiums, a golf course, hotel, spa and possibly a polo club.

Instead, the land will remain a cattle ranch, an alfalfa field and a woodland on the edge of the Methow River, offering public access to national-forest trails for hiking and cross-country skiing.

Tomorrow, the Washington Department of Wildlife is scheduled to announce it has signed a purchase agreement to buy the 845-acre ranch for $5.6 million.

The money is coming from the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition, a non-profit organization that has received $113 million from the Legislature to acquire land for parks, wildlife habitat, trails and water access.

How to describe the Big Valley Ranch? "As a wildlife corridor, it's tremendous," said Jensen, of Winthrop in Okanogan County. "It's a really critical piece of land. It's cool."

The Big Valley Ranch is the largest undivided property in the Methow Valley, a critical migration route for the largest mule deer herd in the United States, a key parcel needed to link hundreds of miles of cross-country ski and hiking trails and one of the best-known cattle ranch in the Methow Valley.

Along with the Early Winters resort, it was one of only two places in the valley large enough to support a resort.

"This is one of the most important parcels of property in this whole valley - it is the very heart and soul of this valley," said John Hayes, a Winthrop consultant who is helping to plan the trail system.

Like others in Winthrop, Hayes is breathing easier now that the Big Valley Ranch won't be developed. Proposals "had us worried to death," he said.

Ron Judd, vice president of the wildlife and recreation coalition, said the property was advertised for sale internationally, touching off a good deal of interest among developers who wanted to build a resort there.

One prospective buyer even placed earnest money down for a deal but that eventually fell through.

"They were talking about condos and polo fields and lots of subdivisions," Jensen said. "It was pretty shocking for those of us who live here."

Under a separate easement donation by the owners, Harold and Tina Heath, to the Methow Valley Trail Association, the property will be developed for trails. Next August, Hayes said, trails will open on the ranch for hiking, horseback riding and, the following winter, cross-country skiing. Trails will snake through the property in forested land along the Methow River.

Groomed cross-country ski trails will also run through the property, and when the trail system is complete it will be one of the largest cross-country trail systems in the country, Hayes said.

Four miles northwest of Winthrop on Highway 20, the Big Valley Ranch is just over 10 miles from the Early Winters resort property, which has been wrapped up in court for years over legal challenges.

The Heaths will continue to run cattle and grow alfalfa on the cleared land under a lease agreement that runs for five years. The other half of the land, which is forested and includes a 3.5-mile corridor along the Methow River, will be untouched except for trail-building.

Judd said mule deer that live in the range migrate across the valley floor in the spring and fall. Keeping the ranch undeveloped was important to the survival of the herds, because "one thing the mule deer doesn't do well is change course when there is a potential blockage."

The area is also home to whitetail deer, moose, black bear, cougars, bald and golden eagles, great horned owls, barred owls, ospreys, blue herons and kingfishers.