Pryor Mountains Working Ranch

This ranch in the Pryor Mountains is an authentic working cattle and horse ranch south of Billings, Montana. This is not a dude ranch. Cowboys have taken care of this ranch since 1889 and they will ride with you on 40,000 acres of open grassland country while taking care of 1,200 mother cows and their calves. Montana's "Big Sky Country" takes you away from swimming pools and golf courses to a remote, quiet setting where you can hear the creek at night and see open, breathtaking scenery no matter what direction we decide to ride that day. The ranch raises their own quarter horses.

Being a cowboy has always been a secret dream of lots of men and women. To a cowboy, the horse was not a pet but a companion and partner with whom he works and depends on to accomplish great tasks. That is what we offer at this ranch - the beautiful country, a great cow horse who will help you turn your first cow back into the herd and help you to feel what it is to be a real cowboy. The ranch is located in very beautiful, peaceful, and quiet country at the border of Montana and Wyoming. It is rolling, native grasslands with areas of pines and canyons, laying along the Eastern slope of the majestic Pryor Mountains which run East and West. Very few people have ever invaded its serene and spacious lands. As you leave the paved highway and start up the canyon along the rutted road toward the mountain, you actually feel as if you are traveling back in time.

Ranch weeks are all about a cowboys life: Caring for the land (25,000 acres) is a loving stewardship. Caring for the 800 head of cows and calves changes after a long winter and a well earned change of focus at the ranch. Each day will include riding and working cattle and returning strays to their pastures and gathering and working cattle. We have branding in the spring and gathering and weaning in the fall.

Come ride with our cowboys, it will change your life.

The sun rises at 4:30 right along with our cook and each morning the bell rings at 7:00 for breakfast (coffee is always on at 5:30). Do you want to share in the first best experience? The best place to experience this thrill is on the canyon rims at 6:30 each morning with your camera.

Our wranglers will take you with them (if you want to go) to bring in the horse rumuda on one of these peaceful mornings. If you want to ride, then ask Mike to put your name on the list early. This is one of the first most memorable experiences we share with our guest during their stay at the Dryhead.

A ranch week may include:
branding, vaccinating, roping, mini-veterinary needs, wrangling the cavvy, holding herd, salting, fencing, rotating pastures, bull gathering, weaning calves, pregnancy testing cows, weaning colts, working mare bands, occasional horse drives and rounding up strays. Each activity depends on the time of year you decide to join us. Generally, ranch weeks include several of the activities listed above. You can be sure that you will be able to push a lot of cattle!

Roping instruction and riding hints are part of our Cowboy School on Monday mornings. We want everyone to try their hand at roping and improve their riding skills.

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Itinerary / Highlights

These spring and fall drives give experienced riders the thrill of watching a cavvy or horses move through beautiful high plains desert country as we trail horses from winter to summer pastures.

Each horse drive will move different horses. Sometimes we will trail baby colts with the mares, sometimes we will move young horses in training with cavvy horses who know the way and how to stay together. Sometimes we will move mares and studs to special pastures where they spend the summer season. Often we will move the horse cavvy that we pick our guest horses out of. Each requires a different level of experience and skill. A loose horse can outrun a saddle horse with a rider anytime so we will show you how to control a herd of horses and move them in a way where we can control them and take them where we want them without hurting the colts or running horses out of control. Western movies make it look like horses can run forever and that everyone runs everywhere but responsible horse people know that a walk or a canter are much more healthy and realistic.

The Horse Drive take three days and will cover 50 miles as we trail horses up Horse Thief Canyon through the Caroline Lockhart ranch into Deadman Creek and onto the Crow Indian Reservation.

We will pick you up in the afternoon on day one at the Billings, Montana, airport. We will then travel to the ranch. We will bunk each night at the ranch and eat breakfast and supper meals there while we drive to our horse cavy each day. We will trail these horses over the 45/50 miles back to our Wyoming winter pastures (reverse in the spring). We will return you to the Billings, Montana airport in the afternoon of the last day.

Spring Horse Drive
We will be gathering mares and colts so we can remove the colts and then trailing mares to spring pastures on the Pryor Mountains. Our second horse drive will be taking young potential riding stock and our fillies to our training facilities.

Fall Horse Drive
We will be trailing our horse cavvy and young riding stock to winter pastures three or four days and about 50 miles from the ranch. These pastures have not yet been purchased.

We furnish a pommel bag to keep your camera and gloves and hand warmers in along with other important items you might need as you are riding out all day, like snacks. Most riding days we will take our lunch as most of the time we are riding in terrain that does not allow our lunch suburban to come. We will stop several times each day so you can take pictures or remove a jacket or get things out of your pommel bag or just let everyone get off their horse and rest.

Working with horses is a wonderful thrill. We share this unique love with all of our guests that come to our ranch. All of us and all those guests who come to spend a week at our ranch in one way or another share the common bond of loving horses. The ranch offers some unique opportunities to see horses in their natural environment and work with them in a special way.

Sample Itinerary Spring Horse Drive

SUNDAY: 4:00 PM Arrival. Meet everyone in the luggage area of the Billings, Montana airport. Drive to the ranch (takes three hours). Will eat supper at the ranch and get settled in your rooms. After supper we will have an orientation meeting so we can discuss the schedule for the week.

MONDAY: 7:00 Breakfast. 8:00 leave for Lovell. 9:00 rope out horses and saddle at the Lovell ranch. Go to wherever the mares have been on pasture (Copenhagen). Gather mares. Eat lunch. Head out the gate and through the Bentonite hills to Crooked Creek corrals where the mares will stay in the Brand Inspection corrals until Tuesday morning. Unsaddle horses and leave them in the corrals, put saddles in the truck. Feed hay and water horses. Visit the Devils Canyon Overlook on the way back to the ranch to eat supper.

TUESDAY: 7:00 Breakfast. 8:00 leave for Crooked Creek. 9:00 rope out horses and saddle. Brand Inspector will check all brands on mares. Leave the corrals by l0:00. Meet for lunch at the Devil's Canyon Overlook area. Arrive at Hough Creek. Let horses drink at creek. Feed hay. Unsaddle horses and load saddles on truck. Visit the Carolyn Lockhart Ranch on the way back to the ranch to eat supper.

WEDNESDAY: 7:00 Breakfast. 8:00 leave for Hough Creek corrals. 8:30 rope out horses and saddle. Gather mares and head out the gate. Lunch at end of Lockhart Lane. Ranch by 4:00. Settle horses in pasture. Unsaddle horses. Free time if schedule allows. We have a great Buffalo Jump just down the Dryhead canyon within walking distance of the ranch. It is fun to dig for buffalo bones. Horsemanship tips from the cowboys will be available in the evening.

THURSDAY: 8:00 Breakfast. 9:00 leave for Cody. 11:00 arrival in Cody. Each person can decide the things they would like to see and do. We will have booklets available in the rooms that tell of the things going on around Cody. This is before the normal tourist season but the Museum is always open and there are several western stores and saddle shops in Cody. We will meet for supper about 5:00 and head home by 6:30. Arriving home at 8:30.

FRIDAY: 7:00 Breakfast. 8:00 rope out and saddle horses. 8:30 head out of the ranch to ride. We have lots to check out and look for: fences that are laid down by snow, ponds that should be getting full of run-off-water, grass availability, close gates all over the ranch, general well being of the whole place. We will ride back in for lunch and out again in the afternoon. If time permits we will have an additional Horsemanship sharing with the cowboys. Supper will be at 6:00. Video showing at 7:30.

SATURDAY: Saturday is a "getting ready to go home" morning. We eat breakfast as always at 7:00 and have time to pick up some things in our small ranch store as well as exchange goodbyes with the cowboys and other guests. We leave the ranch around 10:00 and have some time to visit several historic sites and get back into Billings between 1 and 3 PM.

Most of our guests stay at the Rimrock Airport Inn - let us know if you would like us to make the reservation for you ....

Subject to change

Other Details

Accommodation Details

During the time at the ranch you will stay in the bunkhouse, at a room in the ranch house or in one of the cabins. In the bunk house there are six comfortable western style guest rooms and a shared bathroom. The bunkhouse also has an inviting front porch to sit on and enjoy a quiet moment or share cowboy stories with other guests.

The ranch house has 3 rooms with shared bathroom. The small ranch house has a living room for the guests.
The cabins are reset and ready for guests. We have decorated them with old ranch pictures of guests and landscapes as the old blends into new.

Camping will depend on weather conditions and the majority vote of the guests that week. If we camp, we will stay in an authentic cow camp. We will have campfire meals and teepees to sleep in out under the stars. We furnish sleeping bags that have a pillow and blanket inside, we offer a camp cot.
We provide sleeping bags, foam pads, and cots, if they want one.
You spend the last night at a hotel in Billings (dinner is not included on this day).

Meals
Our guests eat three meals a day with the family and our cowboys in the cookhouse. Our ranch home-style meals are served with hot homemade breads. Each week we serve tender angus beef steaks, top sirloin roast, healthy vegetables, fresh salads, homemade desserts and lots of chocolate chip cookies for the kid in all of us. We promote beef on our ranch from pasture to plate. One of the meals we are famous for is our Indian Tacos, you can only eat one.

Our cook does a great job dealing with special diets. Please let us know if you have special food needs. Our meals are served buffet-style and several times a week we pack a lunch when we ride out all day to move and work cattle.