A cove where ancient civilizations' petroglyphs (rock engravings) have been discovered on the JE Canyon Ranch, a former working cattle ranch turned 50,000-acre conservation laboratory for the Nature Conservancy, which bought the little-known but scenery- and biodiversity-rich site in 2015.
Especially unknown to the outside world, including even most Coloradans, is the ranch's steep, stunning Purgatoire** (sometimes called Picketwire) Canyon on the banks of the Purgatoire River that seems to drop precipitously from the otherwise flat prairie of southeastern Colorado's Las Animas County. The Nature Conservancy's goals in obtaining the obscure wonder included protection against development through a conservation easement, restoration of the threatened shortgrass prairie and pinon-juniper forest, and utilizing the vast property for botanical and other research. **Poigatoire is French for "purgatory." French trappers named the river to commemorate Spanish explorers killed in an Indian attack. Image by Carol M. Highsmith.
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