Egeria Creek Ranch

Listing Price: $21,900,000

Egeria Creek Ranch is located south of the ranching town of Yampa, Colorado, and is adjacent to Toponas, Colorado.  The property lies in between the resort communities of Vail/Beaver Creek and Steamboat Springs along Colorado Highway 131, the Vail-Steamboat Springs corridor.  Situated at the junction of Highways 131 and 134, Toponas is the southeastern entrance to Yampa Valley and is situated at an elevation of 8,271’.  Over the past century, this valley has been noted for its fine cattle, premium quality hay and timber.  Some of the best fishing, hunting, cross-country skiing and snowmobiling can be found in the Routt National Forest surrounding Toponas and Yampa.  The amenities of these small ranching communities include a hotel, two restaurants, general store, two service stations, community hall, library and post offices.  The ranch is 40 minutes from I-70. Distances to nearby airports include 43 miles to Steamboat Springs, 54 miles to Vail/Eagle County, 64 miles to Hayden, 113 miles to Aspen, 160 to Grand Junction and 173 miles to Denver.

With 8,818 acres, the Egeria Creek Ranch is a rancher’s dream.  Over the past twenty years the current owners have assembled this spectacular ranch. Today the ranch is considered one of the best working cattle ranches in the Rocky Mountains. The property has traditionally carried 2,200 pairs of cattle during summer months allowing them to graze on the deeded acreage as well as forest-leased land.  The grazing permits include more than 50,000 acres maintained by the ranch.  The ranch is adjacent to the Routt National Forest which consists of well over 1,000,000 acres in addition to the Flattops Wilderness Area which consists of 235,000 acres.  Horseback riding, hiking, mountain biking and snowmobile trails extend into the reaches of the Flattops Wilderness Area and the Routt National Forest.

The ranch improvements include four modest homes:

• 1,624 sqft modular home at the north edge of Toponas on highway 131 that was built in 1999.   It has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.

• 790 sqft log home with a metal roof on the southern edge of the ranch.  It has 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, and the home exudes a mountain feel.

 • 924 sqft ranch home with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom and is located on the east side of the ranch.

• 1,399 sqft ranch home located on Routt County Road 5.  The home was built in 1940 and has 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom.

A 1,500 sqft shop is located on the south side of the ranch in addition to two log barns and a connecting shed.  Additional older buildings on the ranch include hay and livestock sheds and a 432 sqft horse barn with a loft that was built in 1909 and was recently remodeled.  In addition, it has a set of good quality working corrals, covered livestock scale, stack yards and loading chute.  Egeria Creek Ranch is fenced and crossed fenced and boasts a 3,500 foot runway that can easily be expanded.  Improved gravel driveways, extensions of electrical service, two septic systems, a domestic well and development of Harper Spring for domestic water, round out the ranch’s improvements.

Egeria Creek Ranch possesses the necessary elements to create a tremendous fishery with more than 41 miles of creeks.  The water rights, existing streams and reservoirs as well as the stream flows provide the needed cubic feet per second and water needed for this ranch to be a fisherman's dream.  In addition, there are more than 42 acres of lakes and ponds on the property. There are also approximately 945 acres of wetlands that could be reclaimed for wildlife habitat and possibly developed into wetland mitigation banking opportunities.

In Colorado and most of the west, water rights are based on the prior appropriation doctrine, which basically means “first in time, first in right”.  Egeria Creek Ranch has tremendous senior water rights.  All of the water rights are tributary to Egeria Creek in the Colorado River watershed.  The ranch has substantial decreed “in-basin and trans-basin” water rights.  There are countless miles of creeks, streams, ditches and reservoirs on the property.  The existing senior water rights are extremely valuable because they are not only more than adequate to irrigate the meadows on the ranch but the water rights can be amended through water court to include municipal use and then transferred and sold to different end users in other parts of Colorado.  The trans-basin water rights on the subject property are return flows that can be sold or leased without curtailing irrigation on the property.  It is estimated that between 1,000 – 1,500 acre feet of return flows can be sold and transferred at a value of between $5,000,000 to $10,000,000.  The current owners have a quantified final decree from water court with specified return flows and a guaranteed yield; this makes the water rights on Egeria Creek Ranch a very significant part of the value in the ranch.