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RIVER RIDGE RANCH
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"This lovely foothill belt where the blue oak live and
grow turns out to be one of the most endangered habitats in the State. The blue oak woodland, which is the foothill
woodland right here, is disappearing at an unprecedented rate in
California." -- Barbara Brydolf
“Our mission statement is to act as a demonstration ranch for local people and visitors on how to keep large parcels intact and simultaneously make a living,” -- Gary Adest
"Part of our mission is to continue educating people in Tulare County about what resources they have, what riches they have." -- Barbara Brydolf
"For those people who care about these places, for those who want to be able to take children and grandchildren to places like that, to learn about what does it take to raise a calf? What does it take to keep the pee and the poop out of the river? What is it like to walk across a place where very few people have ever walked before? What is it like to visit a place where there's grinding holes from Native Americans from 4,000 years ago?" -- Gary Adest
“You want high diversity, you want resilience, and that means that you're buffered against fluctuations and changes in the economic environment.” -- Gary Adest
"The plants that grow here provide habitat for the birds that migrate up and down the foothills of the Sierra Nevada . . . the connectivity to the mountains provides habitat for animals that migrate up and down mountains, like deer and bear and bobcats." -- Barbara Brydolf
"A lot of people are making memories here all the time." -- Gary Adest
"We just got done with a month's worth of hosting 500 school children from 13 different schools in Tulare County for a program called Trout in the Classroom, where students raise eggs donated by Fish and Game and bring their little hatchlings to the ranch, have an entire day of outdoor education that's taught by local non-profits -- WildPlaces, Sequoia Riverlands Trust -- and have a great time." -- Gary Adest
Photos for this article by: Gary Adest, George Pilling, Laurie Schwaller
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Garry
History: The Story of River Ridge Ranch By Paul Hurley Conservation works, and it pays its way at River Ridge Ranch. Gary Adest and his wife, Barbara Brydolf, are demonstrating a model for prudent land conservation at their River Ridge Ranch northeast of Springville. They have permanently conserved a working cattle ranch as a 722-acre preserve that features conservation demonstration projects, education, entertainment, cultural exploration, and recreation. But unlike many other examples of conserved property, River Ridge Ranch is a privately owned commercial venture. Gary and Barbara have figured out how to preserve the land for the future and preclude commercial real estate development while also deriving income from the property through a wide variety of enterprises that respect the land, harvest its potential for productive use, and welcome the public. “Our mission statement is to act as a demonstration ranch for local people and visitors on how to keep large parcels intact and simultaneously make a living,” Gary said. “So the value-added strategy is here to see. You can do special events of various kinds. You can get as creative as you want. You can afford, if you're willing, to open it to the public under certain limited timings, for outdoor education, for example, for camps.” The enterprise has taken an uncommon amount of creative vision, which both Gary and Barbara have accumulated in eclectic careers and life experience. Gary is a native of Brooklyn, New York, and Barbara grew up in Pasadena. City-dwellers, they were both attracted to the outdoors as biologists. Gradually, they were able to move out of the cities and were happily living in a cabin in Camp Nelson when their dream property found them: the Negus Ranch came up for sale in 1998. The property was a working cattle ranch in the rolling foothills of the Sierra Nevada on the edge of what has become the Giant Sequoia National Monument. The ranch's fields and pastures, blue oak woodland, and riparian corridor along the North Fork of the Tule River provided an abundance of native habitat for wildlife. Gary and Barbara were surprised at their good fortune at being in a position to make an offer on the property. “This is sort of a biologist's dream,” Gary said, “where you find these large intact parcels, that while they have been used heavily, they've only been used for cattle grazing mostly, and that means that primarily they can recover, when managed properly. They haven't been bulldozed and turned into suburban residential housing tracts.” Having volunteered with the local Tule Oaks Land Trust, the couple had some knowledge of how land conservation easements worked. By selling the subdivision rights and borrowing from their retirement savings, they managed to leverage the money for the purchase price, about $700,000. “I went back to school and got a teaching credential and got a job as a teacher, full-time,” Barbara said, “and that provided the income that we needed to be able to allow Gary to do what he wanted to do, which was to turn this into a working ranch which would actually pay for itself.” Gary immediately started looking for revenue opportunities. He negotiated rights for a wireless Internet site that serves Springville. He leased parts of the property for limited hunting of turkey and quail and for fishing. Cattle grazing continued on the ranch, but was converted to grass-fed, organic beef. “My management philosophy for the ranch is to manage it as an ecosystem,” Adest said. “You want high diversity, you want resilience, and that means that you're buffered against fluctuations and changes in the economic environment.” Gary stumbled onto what became one of River Ridge Ranch's prime sources of income when an acquaintance asked a question. They said, "You know, we have some friends who want to do a wedding. Can they get married on the ranch? How much would that be?'” Gary recalled. “So I just picked a number out of the hat and they said, 'Fine.'” When more people started to inquire about weddings on the ranch, Gary realized he had a huge opportunity. He created a web site and started advertising. Within ten years, weddings - as many as twenty a year - and other special events became the principal source of revenue for River Ridge. Gary continues to look for more eco-friendly and compatible uses for the property. The ranch hosts an annual camp for cancer-stricken children. It welcomes hundreds of school children each year for ecology education for programs such as Trout in the Classroom, where the kids raise fingerling trout and stock the ranch's stream. A regular music event takes place on Wednesday evenings. Gary worked on an archery club with the local sheriff. “One of the things that I love about this place is that it did provide that connection with nature that both Gary and I were looking for,” Barbara said. “Every time I come here, I see something fabulous. So like today, I was watching the orioles and the black-headed grosbeaks, and then listening to the wrens singing, and I just love that stuff. That to me is what makes my life worthwhile.” Gary and Barbara are also gratified that they can not only preserve a piece of the Sierra Nevada foothills so future generations can know what it was like before settlement, they can also share the experience with people now. "We've been able to share it with lots of our friends, and share it with people who wanted a beautiful place to get married,” Barbara said. “Gary's done all this stuff, Trout in the Classroom, where we allow school kids to come here. And we just love that, because we're educators. We value this, and we want other people in Tulare County also to appreciate what they have and want to preserve it, so it doesn't go away.” November, 2012 
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Directions: Address: 37675 Balch Park Road, Springville, CA, (559) 539-0207 Latitude/Longitude: N36° 10.5661', W118° 47.9201' 36.176102, -118.798668 From Visalia, take Hwy 198 east. Turn right (south) onto Road 204/Spruce Rd. Turn left (east) onto Hwy 65 south toward Porterville. Turn left (east) onto County Route J28 through Strathmore to the junction with Hwy 190. Go left (east) on Hwy 190 into Springville. Turn left (north) at the big white barn onto Balch Park Road/County Route J37. Watch for the River Ridge Ranch sign, on your right, at 37675 Balch Park Road. UPDATE 021025: After hosting over 250 weddings, and having proven the concept of multiple, thoughtful revenue streams on a working landscape, the Ranch's wedding business has closed, and it no longer hosts annual camps for kids, but it continues to host regular, free-to-the-public concerts at the ranch in the spring and fall. In a greater strategy to transition River Ridge "from ranch to reserve," as a scientific research station, the ranch now has agreements with California State University, Long Beach; UC Merced; and the tribal youth non-profit Native Star Foundation, enabling undergraduate and graduate classes and Master's degree and faculty research to become a regular part of River Ridge's calendar. The public access component continues as part of this vision, via camping and lodging through Hipcamp.com, hikes and talks, live music, an annual Foothills Festival, and spontaneous events such as the Acorn 2-step, when volunteers planted 3,000 acorns in an hour! |