"Mountain Cows!" -- Ranching in Snake River Canyons

Many years ago I was driving a friend visiting from Chicago down the Wawawai Canyon road to the main Snake River Canyon  -- 5 miles and down a 1000 feet in elevation below the rich wheat-lentil-pea fields of the Palouse and Camas Prairies.

The canyons are too steep for the high tech mechanised agriculture of the prairies above.  Although 400 miles from the ocean this stretch of the Snake River, only 1400 feet above sea level, and in the eastern tail of the Cascade rain shadow, can be bloody hot and dry in the summer.

Hot Northern Desert River Canyon

It was an early spring day when Jones and I neared the bottom of the canyon and looked across at the meadow up the hillside. 

"Wow, mountain cows," he yelled. 

I still think of them that way, but now I know that a number of the farmers of the prairie above also keep cows in these canyons.  



Cows grazing seasonal hillside pasture in Wawawai Canyon

We stopped and looked.  I'd sort of seen cows around the canyons, but hadn't noticed they were so "all around."

Over the years I learned that the canyon pastures have two greenings each year -- periods of rapid growth after September rains before snow and ice cover, and with the melt in late winter to early spring -- sort of like two springs.  Except in barnyards, I seldom saw a cow (and never a calf) in summer, nor in the seasonal deep freezes of January and February.   I really had no idea of how the cattle were managed and where they all went, until a local rancher summarized: 

I can explain our program and maybe you can find some of it useful. The cows are turned out in the canyons in November and graze until around the first of the year. Then we gather them and feed hay till early April when they are turned back out on the new grass. It is during the winter months when the calves are born. In late May and early June they are rounded up and hauled to to summer ranges in north Idaho. In October we start weaning the calves and bring them to the river and put them in pens and feed them. They are not put out on grass. The cows are brought home in November and the cycle begins again. The calves are marketed in Jan-Feb. 

Straight forward in theory -- cows graze here fall and spring, feed them hay in winter and move them up a few thousand feet for summer -- but pulling it off requires a lot of skills and work.  Winters can be especially challenging; the most severe of these may freeze springs and streams so ranchers must provide for water as well as feed.

The rough terrain means that the traditional horseman is required -- along with working stock dogs.

Having all of the cows together in late winter also facilitates watching over the calving season.

Mother cleaning calf moments after birthing

Calf opens eyes to the world for her first look around

Cattle drives sometimes surprise drivers along State Route 193.  Drives spread the "pairs" -- cow and calf -- among many small canyon pastures for the spring.  Also drives collect the cows for trucking to summer pasture.

Working dog at lower right has seen and noted that the calf at lower left is attempting to turn back.  The dog corrects this immediately.  Men on horses keep the flow going, but nothing matches a stock dog for managing strays.