Deer Valley Ranch

The Deer Valley Ranch staff and owners are committed to serving you with our hearts as well as our hands. As guests on our family dude ranch, you are more than clients; you are a part of our home. For three generations our family has welcomed families, singles, couples, and single parents to a place where all are welcome. It is the Colorado Dude Ranch experience at the finest. We are fortunate to live in a spectacular Colorado mountain valley. As a Dude Ranch, of course we ride horses. However, we also hike timberline trails, fish in clear mountain streams, and simply breathe in the beauty of God's creation every day. Yet, the true joy of a Deer Valley Ranch vacation is the "sense of place" that it provides. It is a conversation with another guest at dinner, watching as a wrangler encourages your nervous son on his first ride, sharing the camaraderie of making it up a major mountain peak, or laughing when your guide falls into the cold water while fishing. Ranch vacations have plenty of challenges to meet, nervous new experiences (rafting, horseback riding, and hiking above timberline), and lots of laughter and smiles at our Colorado dude ranch. It is the people that make a Colorado ranch vacation special. Deer Valley Ranch was started by Parker and Clara Woolmington in 1954 as a Christian Dude & Guest Ranch. While the accommodations have changed and the activities have multiplied, we are still here to care for guests from all over the world in our beautiful Colorado mountains. The Ranch is now being served by the second generation (John and Lisa Woolmington and Harold and Sue DeWalt) and third generations (Brock and Brenda DeWalt) and soon the fourth generation (the five DeWalt children). Deer Valley sits in the beautiful Chalk Creek Valley. The Ute Indians lived here in the 1800s when the first Spanish explorers came up from Santa Fe. Explorers and mountain men like Zebulon Pike and Kit Carson were in the valley in the early years and were followed by the cowboys and settlers who began to move in by 1870. When gold and silver were discovered the prospectors hiked all over our mountains and small mining communities like St. Elmo, Hancock, and Romley were developed. By 1882 there was a stagecoach line and a narrow gauge railroad in the valley. Chalk Creek is still a place to hike and ride the old miner's trails, visit the ghost towns, and sense the history of the Old West.