Cattle Drive Is Long, Hard--Right Out of the Old West

It was still dark as a dozen cowboys rode out of the forest and across the frosty meadow. Ice-bright stars glinted in the black sky and coyotes yapped and howled from a nearby ridge, signaling that dawn was not far off.

Fall was quickly turning to winter in the southern Sierra Nevada and the riders--cold faces tucked deep into the folds of their winter coats--were in a hurry. They had to be in Ramshaw Meadows by daylight to gather the Double Circle L cattle for the drive out of the mountains.

With the summer grazing season in the Inyo National Forest at an end, cattleman John Lacey’s crew had to get hundreds of cows and their fat calves safely out of the high country and into the low-lying grasslands of the Owens Valley before snowstorms trapped them.

Oldest in State

The 30-mile, four-day cattle drive--oldest, largest and longest in the state, according to the California Cattlemen’s Assn.--is a holdover from the Old West. It starts in the large meadows of the Golden Trout Wilderness at the north end of the Kern Plateau, passes over the Sierra crest and winds down through precipitous canyons, ending at the Lacey ranch near the town of Olancha, nearly 200 miles north of Los Angeles.

Because the summer range that Lacey leases from the government is in the wilderness, there are no roads. Helicopters, trucks or other modern equipment are not allowed and the Lacey cowboys punch cows the old-fashioned way, on horseback. The two cow camps--log cabins and pole corrals located in Brown and Templeton Meadows--are supplied by mule trains just as they were in the 1880s.

Up here cowboys still wear pistols, chew tobacco and drink whiskey early and late. They roll out of their bedrolls long before daylight and put in long hours gathering and herding cattle over timbered mountains and through icy streams, just as Lacey cowhands have done for 100 years.

John Lacey’s grandfather began running cattle in the Sierra in the 1880s. This past summer John’s son, Mark, 21, spent the summer working on the high public ranges leased by his father before returning to his senior year at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The fourth-generation Lacey on this range, Mark one day will take over from his 49-year-old father.

But Mark Lacey may not always be able to range the family’s herds in the high country. That right could be canceled as the result of a controversy over how best to protect golden trout, the small, colorful fish for which this wilderness was named. Goldens--the official California state fish--are found naturally only on the north end of the Kern Plateau. Preliminary studies indicate that the cattle grazing in the meadows and watering in the streams may be damaging the stream-side ecosystems and the fish’s habitat, according to biologists from the California Department of Fish and Game and U.S. Forest Service range managers. If further studies prove this to be true, cattle grazing in this 300,000-acre wilderness may have to be eliminated, they say.

Five ranches have forest allotments to graze a total of 2,100 cows on the Kern Plateau. For this right they pay $1.35 a month per cow; the calves running at their mothers’ side are not counted or charged. The Lacey permit is for 627 cows, largest on the plateau, and his 48,000-acre range allotment is the most critical because it lies all within the wilderness boundaries.

Talk of the government studies angers Lacey. As for stream-side damage, he snaps, “Nonsense . . . I’ve been coming in here since I was 9 years old, there’s not a damn bit of difference now. . . . Those banks are sandy, they’ve been caving off for a hundred years.”

Lacey--the current president of the California Cattlemen’s Assn.--grew up in Olancha, graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and took over the 640-acre ranch 20 years ago, expanding its operations. He leases 35,000 acres from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in the Owens Valley and has another 10,000-acre ranch near Paso Robles.

Lacey is the spitting image of the Marlboro man, and the heart of his Double Circle L operations is here in the high country. Watching him work on horseback, there is no way to tell that this lean, rawhide-tough cowman lost his right leg in a 1969 accident and wears an artificial limb. Nothing seems to slow him down, not even bitter cold weather.

On the first morning of the drive, a thermometer outside the log cabin registered 14 degrees as the cowboys awoke at 4:10 a.m. to the sounds of the cook rattling around the wood stove whipping up a huge breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, biscuits and gravy.

Before first light, breakfast was over, the horses were saddled and the crew was on the trail to Ramshaw Meadows, 11 freezing miles distant. Two hours later, just as the first warming rays of the sun peeked through the trees, Lacey jumped his horse across Strawberry Creek and reined in.

Scouring the Country

Two by two he sent his riders up into the side canyons and timbered ridges. “Gather everything you see and head it down this way; we’ll meet over there,” he said, pointing across the wide meadow to a rocky nob. For the next several hours cowboys combed the country, starting the cattle out of the brush into the meadow.

Slowly the big herd took shape and the sound of 1,200 lowing cows and bawling calves filled the air. Cowpunchers yelled and whistled, popping ropes on their leather chaps, shoving the herd along, moving it south toward Templeton Mountain five miles away.

Leading the herd was Orville Houghton, 77, a retiree from the Inyo County road department. On the flanks of the herd were Glen Whitesides, 72, of Bishop, who once worked in the oil fields; Milt Cox 72, a retired truck driver from Bishop; Leo Porterfield, 74; a retired Inyo forest ranger, and Howard Copley, 65, of Paso Robles, a retired banker. All had volunteered for the drive.

The rest of the hands were with Lacey at the rear of the mile-long herd, pushing the slower cattle along. Cows, temporarily separated from their calves, let out mournful calls and tried to turn back to find their offspring. A 5-day-old bull calf on spindly legs was unable to keep up and kept falling behind.

Lacey ordered his foreman, Danny Torres, to give the straggler a lift. Torres roped the calf and, with the help of another cowboy, got the little critter up in the saddle and stretched across his lap.

By mid-afternoon the cattle trailed across Templeton Meadow and into a large, fenced holding field for the night. Tired and hungry, the crew headed back to Brown Meadow and the cow camp, an hour’s ride away. The cook had the coffeepot on and hot soup and sandwiches were ready. While some wolfed down their belated lunch, others lined up around the big outdoor fire pit, sipping bourbon and spinning yarns while they waited their turn for a hot shower.

The volunteers ride their own horses into the high country each fall just for the adventure of the drive. All have “cowboyed some”--as they refer to the work--and jump at the chance to ride long hours, drink whiskey and tell tall tales.

“We call ourselves the ‘Over the Hill Gang,’ ” laughed Cox, who wore a Texas-style hat.

Whitesides, who has been on 14 drives, grinned and warned newcomers that some of the meadows were so wet and boggy they were dangerous. He said he once rode his horse into one such swampy meadow while chasing a wild cow and “darned near sank out of sight.”

Monthly Pay

Backing up the volunteer crew were full-time cowboys like Torres, the foreman of Lacey’s Olancha ranch, and Buck Bills, 68, who started riding for the Double Circle L in 1934, when cowboys earned $30 a month. Today full-time cowboys make about $800 a month plus room and board. Foremen make more.

As the men stood by the fire, a horse out in the pasture squealed and kicked at another horse. There was the sound of a heavy hoof striking bone. A buckskin mare named Annie, one of Lacey’s favorite mounts, tried to limp out of the fray but couldn’t move because the long bone in her right rear leg had been snapped.

“Her leg’s broke!” yelled Harold (Brud) Eade, a cattle buyer and Fresno County rancher. Eade grabbed a .22-caliber pistol and headed into the pasture, followed by Lacey. It took four shots to put the animal out of its misery and the suddenness of what had happened cast gloom over the camp.

On the second day of the drive, as the weather remained clear and cold, the cattle were moved from Templeton to Brown Meadow and turned into a 40-acre field. Back in camp, all the hands kept an eye on the weather.

This was to be the last night at the Brown Cow Camp. Lacey and two of his men packed up all of the extra gear and hauled it by mule seven miles over the ridge to another cabin where the crew was to stay the next night. Before they got back to Brown Meadow it was snowing hard.

On the third day, the herd, well trained to travel now, skirted the shoulder of Brown Mountain and dropped into Monache Meadow, then was turned east up through the canyons to Summit Meadow just short of Olancha Pass. It snowed most of the day and, even bundled in down coats and yellow slickers, the cowboys were cold. Even fleece-lined stirrup covers couldn’t keep their toes warm.

The final day of the drive--up over 9,300-foot Olancha Pass and down into the steep, rocky canyons--is always the most dangerous. A horse or a cow can stumble and fall hundreds of feet. Once the cattle start down the canyon, there is no way to stop them. All the cowboys could do on this day was keep them from “rimming out” over the canyon sides and escaping into another canyon.

By 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 3, the long line of cows and calves reached Olancha and were turned into the big fields across U.S. 395. The drive was over.