The Tejon Ranch honors its centuries-old cowboy traditions.
Credit: Sunny Cooper
The cross and crescent brand of Tejon Ranch.
Imagine a man sprawled out on his mantilla, or
saddle blanket, in the sun, writing in his journal. Dust from his glove
smudges the page as he goes on to write about the kingly elk that
bounded away from his small expedition; of pretty green pieces of
malachite and bright copper ore found on banks of creeks full of trout;
and the bareback horse riders inviting them to their native village and
effortlessly racing away through the mountains. As the first sight of
California unfolds before Edward Fitzgerald Beale in 1853, he peers from
beneath his hat to the vast mountains blanketed in clouds and looks
back down to pen the words savage grandeur in his pages. Into a tumultuous West entered the bold man who built this place, Tejon Ranch—270,000 acres that comprise the oldest working ranch in California.
The story of Tejon Ranch seems to present itself in
daguerreotypes, revolving in an old-fashioned photo carousel. In one
image is a Native American village near a glittering lake. In the next, a
Spanish captain discovers a tejon, a dead badger at the
mouth of the canyon. Beale arrives here as California’s first Indian
agent. On the back of a camel, he returns, exploring the land he
patchworked together from four Mexican land grants. JJ Lopez, the
longtime majordomo, herds cattle across the verdant San Joaquin Valley.
Credit: Tejon Ranch
Early vaqueros of the Tejon Ranch.
Fast forward through 160 years of tintypes to the most
current image; watch it change from sepia to Technicolor as head cowboy
Seth Scribner whistles his stock dogs into action across the same
verdant valley, roughly 100 miles from coastal Santa Barbara on the
other side of the Los Padres National Forest. I am here, journaling my
own visit to the mountains that made Beale pause in his saddle. A small
team of black-jacketed cowboys ride across the wide green slopes on this
three-day cattle drive. They are moving the herd to its summer ranges.
A thin line of obsidian on a distant rim soon turns into a
rumbling locomotion of cattle bellowing toward El Paso Creek; small
morteros dimple the surface of a nearby boulder, dark pebbles of coyote
scat cupped inside their hollows. Kristy Pedotti, the statuesque
wrangler with chapped hands who navigated the backroads to get us out
here, tells me this land isn’t home to just the wily coyote. Tejon’s
namesake badger, elk, bear, deer, wild pig, bobcat, pronghorn antelope,
the California condor, fir forests, Joshua trees, and some of
California’s largest oaks are just a portion of the extraordinary life
wildly converging here between Sequoia National Forest, Angeles National
Forest, and Los Padres National Forest. Up to 16,000 head of cattle
graze this wild country, accompanied by this small team of modern-day
vaqueros.
Seven cowboys form the backbone of Centennial Livestock,
the company that leases the lion’s share of Tejon Ranch’s open ranges.
Each of its cowboys trains and cares for his own string of horses and
stock dogs. They meet up before dawn at the Old Headquarters. The old
barn still has signs of the Cross and Crescent brand stamped in its
limestone floor and welded into its swinging gate. In true vaquero
style, these cowboys spend most days on horseback. Cowgirls like the
Pedotti sisters join them from time to time. Conditioned for up to 115
degrees of desert heat or up to five feet of high mountain snow in a
spread where a person could walk for a day without reaching cell phone
reception, they are all as self-reliant as badgers.
Credit: Sunny Cooper
Left to right: Centennial Livestock cowboys Brett Reeves, Seth Scribner, John Donati, and Ben Hay.
Big ranch, big tasks. Scribner says, “One week we might
have to find and gather 1,000 cattle over 20,000 acres where there are
no fences.” New seasons bring new tasks, none bigger than roundup and
branding. Perhaps nothing conveys the historical weight of Tejon Ranch
as well as its own cattle brand, the Cross and Crescent—the oldest
working brand known today.
The guardian of the brand, Barry Zoeller, says Tejon is a
“microcosm of California history.” According to history, California
vaquero traditions were passed down from the Spaniards as they trained
Native Americans to herd mission cattle. Mounted vaqueros were skilled
in the use of rawhide reatas—a necessary talent to work their cattle.
These vaqueros were the West’s earliest working horsemen.
On this cattle drive, the cowboys have outfitted
themselves and their horses in vaquero tradition. Spanish silver bits
and spurs, rawhide and mecate reins, and rawhide hackamores give
testament to a hundred--year--old way of life out here. The etiquette of
the cowboys with each other, their horses, and their dogs, echoes the
harmony and light touch of a longstanding vaquero technique. Whistle
commands to the stock dogs sound across the air, as silvery and staccato
as their Spanish spurs.
From the Spaniards and Beale, to the coyote and the
cattle, history—in sepia and color—swirls around the ranch like dust
from a herd. Vast in every way, Tejon is a juggernaut of ranches,
hanging like a ripe fruit on the California map, long hidden behind the
foliage of private ownership and padlocked gates.
“Why all the padlocks?” I ask the Vice President of
Ranching Operations over chips and salsa at the local Mexican
restaurant. Brian Grant may be the new blood at Tejon Ranch, but the
waitress asks him if he wants the usual, as if he’s been here forever.
He soon rubs the hard edge off those padlocks.
“Five years ago, you might not have received a call back.
We’re trying to change that image, to welcome people in.” He openly
shares the lay of the land over the table and then over the highway that
runs through it. “This is the largest one-fence ranch in California.
There are places I’ll never see out here.” This juggernaut has been held
together in one piece over the past 160 years and, perhaps even more
unusual, is “still unsurveyed, rancho rights.” Shareholders and
agreements have kept this working ranch intact. Two large cattle
companies lease out the land: Mr. Matt Echeverria and Centennial
Livestock.
Once off the highway, Grant takes us into cowboy country;
we end up on a dirt road overlooking Bear Trap Canyon. A rare circle of
California condors spiral in the sky above us, wings spanning 10 feet.
After near extinction, Tejon Ranch is helping these creatures reach a
watershed moment in their recovery. We’ve just seen nine of them. Grant
points to my son and tells me he’s seen these birds up close, as tall as
my 10-year--old boy. Condors are cool, my son whispers in my ear, but when are we getting on a horse?
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We get horseback for a ride through the rugged Bear Canyon
with Scott Neill, the lanky New Zealander who runs the equestrian
center on the ranch, which hosts events for nearly every riding
discipline. Neill tells us about the Western and foxhunting events. Only
the Hounds of Tejon don’t chase foxes—they chase coyotes. We see deer
skirting through thick trees ahead and Neill pays high compliments,
“This place is beautiful. The closest I’ve seen to New Zealand.”
Tejon Ranch is surprisingly lush for the Southwest. A
sentiment echoed by locals in Los Pinos Mexican cafe a few miles from
our guest ranch house. Jacob and Lisa Wolff tell me the wildflower
carpets are incredible to see, even from the highway. When their
curiosity turns to those padlocks, I tell them how Tejon Ranch is
opening up their arms. Plans include diverting the Pacific Crest
Trail—the 2,650-mile hiking trail that spans from Mexico to
Canada—through its property so backpackers can move off the hot Mojave
Desert and back onto the crest of the Sierra Nevada. But this will take
some time.
“We don’t change on a dime,” Grant says. “At the end of
the day, we’re a ranch. We evaluate carefully. We are a slow-moving
animal.”
A beast this size trails a wide wake behind it with every
move it makes. For miles along Interstate 5, the ranch has vineyards,
almond and pistachio groves, oil fields, crops and has recently
diversified to include the Tejon Ranch Outlets, boasting name brands
like Coach and Starbucks, and factory industries like IKEA. Further, a
mile-deep archive of reports reveals sustainable real estate plans,
along with Tejon Ranch’s boldest move yet: An unprecedented agreement to
conserve up to 240,000 acres of its land.
While the rancher and the conservationist are breaking bread, the cowboys are camping out high in the mountains.
Credit: Sunny Cooper
John Donati and Kristy Pedotti hose down their horses at the end of the workday.
The kitchen window at the cowboy cabin is silhouetted with
coffee mugs, a black tactical knife, and half-empty bourbon bottles.
Bare mattresses, wool blankets, and camping gear stack up next to each
other. An old map of Tejon Ranch hangs in the corner above the wood
stove. The cowboys bend an elbow and bunk here together when herds need
several days getting through the mountains. A small ring of stumps
circle the fire pit outside. The cowboys on this team live on the ranch,
cook at each other’s houses, and compete together in rodeos. One of the
Pedotti sisters is wife to Scribner, the head cowboy, and soon they’ll
be welcoming their son into this band of brothers. As we drive away from
the cabin, I start to write tight knit in my notebook and a jostle
turns my knit into knot. I leave it.
The jumbled ink in my journal clearly marks our remote
rides in the ranch truck with Scribner. Unmarked, unpaved roads wind
deep into the belly of wild country, and also to the site of the former
Sebastian reservation. We visit the threadbare school and burial site,
sacred places to the Tejon tribe, an amalgamation of several indigenous
tribes with a history long before the first native vaqueros. Tejon Ranch
allows tribe members special access to these places. Like the cow bones
scattered through the grass, the bones of both sides of history lie
here in Tejon Canyon.
At 5,800 feet, Cordon Ridge would have normally been
choked with snow when I visited the ranch early in the year, but recent
drought has made it possible for us to drive up to the higher mountain
ranges. On this high trail, the cowboys bring cattle along edges that
drop into rocky ravines below. It is unforgiving terrain out here. I
think about the famous descent in Man from Snowy River and ask
if the cowboys can do that gradient. Scribner says they wouldn’t be
working this country if they couldn’t. In the understated confidence
that I’ve quickly learned sums up the head cowboy, he tells me, “You
can’t cheat the mountain.”
We round the bend to a breathtaking view of the Tehachapi
Mountains. Few footprints have been where I’m standing. Few have seen
this deep into such unspoiled country. I see the Old West right before
my eyes, like a living time capsule. This is what makes a bold man pause
in his saddle. While Scribner and my son toss rocks down the
mountainside, my eyes follow the ridges and slopes, undulating like
green leviathans beneath the fog and beyond, where clouds turn them blue
and string them out like long ropes of semi-precious Lapis in the sky. A
line in Beale’s journal describes it as “the very backbone of the
world.” My son sidles up to me and asks me how much of this is Tejon
Ranch. All of it.
I stood on Beale’s backbone of the world and felt the
weight of Tejon’s history, with pages thicker than its conservation
agreement. Its carousel of photos will revolve long past the days we
were here. The head cowboy will pass this legacy on to his own son. The
principle that what is happening in color will eventually turn into
sepia is not lost on the stewards of Tejon Ranch. Large footsteps are
carefully taken, knowing its wake will cut a course for California.
“We’re still here.” Grant says, “We’re doing something right. All things
considered, all things are as they should be.”
Perhaps History itself sits sprawled out on the mantilla
of its saddle under the sun, surveying the world from some high
mountain, journaling what it sees. Pages of savage grandeur, tumultuous
and golden days, and bold moves. Bold moves have built the backbone of
California, whether small and self--reliant as the badger, or as large
and generous as the Tehachapi Mountains. And its legacy is still being
written.
“Keep looking forward and keep some dirt in your hands,”
mule packer and fourth--generation Californio, Tony Matthias says,
smiling at my son.
Credit: Sunny Cooper
Cowboy Brett Reeves keeps an eye on cow-calf pairs.
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