The Historic Dell Fork Ranch

Details & Features

Located in Bondurant, Wyoming, is the Historic Dell Fork Ranch. With a population of 100 residents, this small town is the closest true ranching community to the Jackson Hole resort area. The ranch is conveniently located one mile off Highway 189/191 via one half-mile of county road and one half-mile of private ranch road. Considered one of the finest high-end resort communities in the country, Jackson Hole is a short 30 miles from the ranch. In addition to being the gateway to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, Jackson provides everything a world-class resort community needs. Amenities include a full-service airport, state of the art medical facilities, excellent cuisine and lodging, art galleries including the National Museum of Wildlife Art, summer concerts, world-class trout fishing, rafting and one of the largest contiguous tracts of national parks, forest and wildlife management areas in the country. Teton Village is home to the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, a world-class alpine ski facility with over 2,500 acres of inbound skiable terrain, which also boasts the greatest continuous rise of any ski resort in the United States with approximately 4,200 vertical feet.

The restored buildings now include a 1,850 sqft main house complete with a large picture frame window outlining the dramatic Gros Ventre Mountain Range in the living room, kitchen, dining area, utility and laundry room, three bedrooms and two full baths. External features added include a library or entertainment center, a green house and a large redwood deck sheltered from the wind with Plexiglas panels.

Perhaps the most remarkable and exciting restoration project combines the most primitive 14′ x 18′ cabin. Five people once lived in this cabin under a sod roof with a springhouse, which was used for food storage. The result is Ten Sleep, a 396 sqft bedroom and bath cabin. This quaint retreat has prompted more than one overnight guest to purchase a place in Bondurant.

The Historic Dell Fork Ranch is an angler’s paradise offering multiple onsite options on approximately two miles of private spring-fed fisheries. Dell Creek ribbons its way through miles of forest service lands from its inception well above 8,000 feet elevation in the backcountry solitude of the Gros Ventre Range. Once on the ranch, the creek takes on the character of an idyllic meadow fishery as it meanders through hay ground and bends in the shadow of the adjacent snow-covered peaks before eventually merging with the Hoback River a few hundred yards downstream from the ranch. The close proximity to this confluence with the Hoback River causes spawning fish to reside in summer and fall in the gravel bars and holding water of Dell Creek before dropping back to the Hoback and eventually the Snake River. Dell Creek is the classic trout water every wade fisherman desires. From its deep slots and undercut banks lined with lush vegetation and healthy willows, to its classic riffle-run-pool dynamic, Dell Creek provides an excellent trout habitat. Due to an abundance of food sources such as mayflies, caddis, stoneflies and mysis shrimp, the trout inhabiting the deepest holes average 14-18 inches in length, with a few bigger ones from time to time.

Due to its vast water resources and proximity to the immense backcountry habitat of the Bridger-Teton National Forest, the Dell Fork Ranch enjoys a host of wild visitors. During various times of the year, one can expect to see any number of the area’s native wildlife including antelope, Mule deer, moose, elk, Grizzly and Black bears and wolves. For the birding enthusiast, the ranch is home to an array of species including two Bald eagles that are currently nesting, Golden eagles, kestrels, osprey, Redtail and Swainson’s hawks, bug-consuming tree and barn swallows, Cinnamon teal, Great Blue herons, Sandhill cranes, killdeers, snipes, Yellow warblers, mallards, baldpates, Canada geese, Sage and Blue grouse, Western tanagers, flickers, Red-shafted sapsuckers, Yellow-headed blackbirds, Gold finches, Pine siskins, Cassin’s finches, Western bluebirds, numerous Black-chinned, rufous, calliope and Broad-tailed hummingbirds. Moose often loiter in the willows adjacent to the Hoback River while Mule deer sleep and feed in the yard nightly. The ranch also has a resident Pronghorn antelope herd of 30-40 members at any one time. Common small animals include Unita ground squirrels, badgers, chipmunks, raccoons, red foxes and coyotes.

The owners of the Historic Dell Fork ranch ride with their neighbors and without guides, into the Winds for day trips on a regular basis in the summer and fall months. An incoming owner could ride for longer periods of time from spring to late fall and never go to the same place twice in the course of a year. The adjacent national forest provides seemingly endless miles of horse and pack trails.

Rich with western history, the Dell Fork Ranch is a premier recreational retreat located outside of Bondurant, a traditional ranching community 30 miles south of one of the West’s finest resort communities, Jackson Hole. With National Forest boundary on three sides and two onsite private fisheries, the outdoor pursuits are endless for the angler, explorer or horseman. Enormous Gros Ventre Mountain views, productive cattle and agricultural operation, several charmingly restored cabins including a new custom log home on these 127 acres are what makes the Historic Dell Fork Ranch a fantastic place to call your backcountry retreat and home.