Ranch Country photography
by Robert McCune

In northwest Utah. This is typical of the country these Utah ranch people live in. A lot of snow during the winter and early spring. Eyebrow and mustache freezing weather. My guess is that this is a line-camp and corrals, offering just the bare essentials. Probably unused during the winter. That’s a small bunch of what appears to be mostly Black Angus in the left side of the photo.

First photo below. This no-longer used ranch school and outhouse is three or four miles west of the line-camp cabin. Two stove pipes...winters in this area must be brutal. The corrals and loading ramp are fifty yards to the right of the school. That mesa in the far distance interested me, but the road leading to it was little more than a wagon-track. Maybe two hours to get there, at seven miles per. And it was late in the day, so we decided against it. Spent the rest of the day and that night at the school and corrals.

Noon the next day, at a lunch and rest stop somewhere in the middle of nowhere under a huge cottonwood. After hiking a mile through sagebrush and then up and back down a hillside on a photo-shoot of a windmill and corral, I rested on the edge of my bunk, tired but pleased with the results of the shoot. Aloud, I said to myself, “Robert, why not take your boots off for awhile.”

Maggie was on her bunk reading.  She gave me a quick look and with a touch of sarcasm in her voice said, “Thanks for the warning.”