Balarat, Colorado
Balarat Creek Wild Ranch
Scroll ↓ Photographs by Mark Boslough unless otherwise noted
Balarat Creek Wild Ranch is managed to protect wildlife habitat, ecosystems, and healthy forests.
Balarat Creek Wild Ranch consists of old mineral patents, mill sites, placers, parts of a ranch, and the ghost of a 19th century mining camp called Balarat. For the last quarter century, it has been protected from exploitation including real estate development, motorized recreation, livestock grazing, hunting, mining, and firearms. It is managed for biological diversity. It is home to bears, elk, moose, deer, mountain lions, eagles, and sometimes beaver.
Balarat Creek
Balarat Creek Wild Ranch is named for Balarat Creek, which flows down Long Gulch, running through the center of the property and into South St. Vrain Creek to the north.
Longs Peak, Mount Meeker, and Twin Sisters
Ponderosa farmer
Healthy forest
Healthy forest management
South St. Vrain Creek
Slash burning
“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
Bruce’s Point
Ranch Headquarters
Norma’s Point
Long Gulch columbines
Balarat Creek
Long Gulch raspberry harvest
Long Gulch columbines
Barking Dog Trail
Johnson’s Point
Smuggler Mining Company road reclamation, 2003
Aspen care, 2004
2013 Balarat Creek flood damage near Balarat town site
2013 flood damage on south bank of South St. Vrain upstream of junction with Balarat Creek
Staging Trees for restoration of stream banks from 2013 flood damage (2016).
Mulch arrives at South St. Vrain for restoration project (2016).
Smuggler Boarding House & Crew in 1892-92. Balarat (Carnegie Branch Library for Local History, Boulder, CO)
Balarat, Colorado (unknown origin)
The winter’s wood supply. Balarat Oct. 1927. Left to right: Elmer Warren, C. J. “Rome” Warren, Grant, Mrs. Osborne, Mosher. (Carnegie Branch Library for Local History, Boulder, CO)
Balarat, 4 miners, left to right: Grant, Osborne, C. J. “Rome” Warren, Elmer Warren. Oct. 1927. (Carnegie Branch Library for Local History, Boulder, CO).
William Brugger in front of his Balarat cabin, August 1928. (Carnegie Branch Library for Local History, Boulder, CO).
Looking westerly at Brugger cabin, Boreas cabins, and Boreas dump from about across from the superintendent’s house, July 1927. (Carnegie Branch Library for Local History, Boulder, CO).
Looking westerly up Long Gulch from the boarding house, July 1929. Balarat Buildings left to right: Superintendent’s house, Boreas cabin, Boreas dump. Flood debris filled the Gulch bottom nearly to the Brugger cabin. Oro Fino & Fourth of July Workings are around the bend to the right. (Carnegie Branch Library for Local History, Boulder, CO).
Looking northeasterly down Long Gulch from the superintendent’s house, July 1929. Balarat buildings and workings, left to right: Smuggler shaft dump, bunk house, tunnel house, Half Moon dumps, stable, boarding house, Mount Lessock, upper right, old road from Jamestown visible over the boarding house roof. (Carnegie Branch Library for Local History, Boulder, CO).
Balarat Creek Wild Ranch