Stand at the Lava Lake ranch house and look south and you see the lava flows of Craters of the Moon. Turn around, look north, and what you see is Blizzard Mountain, whose summit at 9,200 feet looms 4,000 vertical feet above the ranch and forms the southeast end of the Pioneer Mountains.

Blizzard Mountain, photo by Kent Redford

Blizzard is a massive complex landscape all of its own, the place where the Northern Rockies meet the Great Basin and it is filled with wildlife. It is a place that we love in all its seasons – from its spectacular high-altitude fields of wildflowers in the spring to its quiet, aspen-lined canyons in the fall – where we have forged powerful shared memories and a commitment to conservation.

Yesterday, on a late fall hiking tour, my friend John and I saw 150 elk, a dozen deer and four golden eagles, two of whom were flying in formation. A group of 45 sage grouse took off from the snowy ridge we were walking and soared half a mile over a deep canyon to the next ridge. An accomplished pilot, John admired these various displays of flying skills and we talked about how different and complementary the experiences of flying and walking are in exploring a place like Blizzard.

photo by Kent Redford

As we descended to the car at dusk, a band of orange light filled the space between the lava fields and the base of the clouds. In the gathering darkness, a lone chukar called out, a tough bird at home in this wild, beautiful, life-giving place.

photo by Kent Redford

about these photos:

Kent Redford, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society Institute, has visited our ranch a few times, and took these amazing photos on a similar fall trip in 2007.

My family lived on the Spanish island of Mallorca until I was 11 and one of my early memories is of walks through the olive tree-studded hills, overlooking the Mediterranean, with the clinking of sheep’s bells bringing the countryside alive.

Lamb is, of course, one of the great staples of Mallorcan and Spanish cooking. So, this Sunday, as we watch Spain compete for its first World Cup title in futbol, we will grill a leg of lamb, hoping La Roja (as the Spanish team is nicknamed) will emerge victorious.

How to officially celebrate a Spain goal

Grilled Leg of Lamb

One butterflied boneless leg of lamb, well-trimmed, a 6 lb leg should feed 6-8
3-4 sprigs of fresh rosemary
5-6 cloves of garlic
Coarse salt to taste
Olive oil to taste

Chop the rosemary leaves into medium sized pieces
Mix salt, rosemary, garlic and enough olive oil to make a wet paste.
Rub on all surfaces of the lamb
Grill on medium heat until internal temperature reaches 160 F
Rest for ten minutes

Eat to chants of “ole, ole, ole”

All of us at Lava Lake like to stay focused on the work close to the ground  raising lambs, restoring creeks, sending orders out to customers around the country. But for us to succeed, both as a business and a conservation effort (and for us the two are inseparable), we need to tell our story and reach a wide audience.

On November 11^th, we had an incredible opportunity to do so. Bettina Ring, Executive Director of the Bay Area Open Space Council, hosted us along with Jon Christensen of the Bill Lane Center of the American West at Stanford University, Janet Brown of Allstar Organics, and Verlyn Klinkenborg of the New York Times for an evening discussion about conservation, food production and the relationships between the urban and rural West. To top it all off, the event was held at the Brower Center, a spectacular Leed-certified building in downtown Berkeley.

It was a fun evening with lively discussion and, of course, some delicious Lava lake Lamb. Some of the big themes we touched on were:

• Lava Lake’s lambs graze over a huge area and their diet is wild and varied. Our lambs love to sample different types of grasses, flowers and shrubs. We believe that the quality and taste of our lamb reflects the lambs’ life of exercise, healthy natural diet and the protection and nurturing they receive from their mothers and our sheepherders. The lambs follow the green-up of spring from the sagebrush steppe of Craters of the Moon through the flower-rich slopes and river valleys of the Pioneer Mountain foothills to high mountain meadows. This is truly the taste of a million acres.
• The landscape where we graze our lambs and where we do our conservation work is nationally-important because of its many protected areas (Craters of the Moon National Monument and Sawtooth National Recreation Area) and abundant wildlife. For us to succeed, we need to develop relationships with bigger population centers on the coasts. These relationships between the wild West and the coasts are crucial to sustaining both a vibrant food economy and protecting our country’s magnificent natural heritage.
• Not only are big landscapes important for our livestock, they are crucial to sustaining wildlife in all its forms. While we at Lava Lake tend to focus on the big critters, like pronghorn, Janet Brown spoke eloquently about pollinator corridors and how important they are to a thriving agriculture.

We were so honored to share a stage with some of the country’s leaders in conservation and sustainable agriculture and we look forward to sharing our story like this more in the future.

We at Lava Lake are thrilled that one of our great friends and fellow conservationists, John French, is one of four finalists nominated to be the 2009 Budweiser Conservationist of the Year. We urge you to vote for John!

Before I came to Lava Lake in 2002, I worked for The Nature Conservancy of Idaho and spent a lot of my time focused on Silver Creek, an extraordinary spring-fed desert oasis that supports one of the West’s finest trout streams. In 2000, we had a huge opportunity to protect a 500-acre ranch that would complete over 10 miles of protected stream corridor and would be a landmark in the Conservancy’s 30-year history of work in the area. All we had to do was find a private buyer who cared about Silver Creek and this land as much as we did.

One spring day, I remember sitting with John and his wife Elaine on a hill overlooking the ranch and its beautiful stretch of Silver Creek. As we ate our sandwiches, John said he was committed and we embarked in a year-long series of negotiations with the owners that culminated in John and Elaine buying and donating a conservation easement on the ranch. In the years since, John has tirelessly worked to restore the habitat on the ranch. It is this sort of commitment and vision that makes conservation happen.

John has worked for decades on conservation issues, ranging from Idaho to Yosemite and he is an accomplished mountaineer and outdoorsman, as well as a veteran and superbly-skilled pilot. He brings tremendous energy, enthusiasm, and intelligence to all his endeavors and he has supported so many of us working in conservation. I can think of no more deserving person for this honor. I hope you will join me and all of us at Lava Lake in voting for John for the Budweiser Conservationist of the Year.

Photo of John French thanks to budweiser.com

Since 2002, Lava Lake has lived with wolves. Reintroduced into Idaho in 1996, wolves have made an extraordinary comeback, both in terms of their numbers and the large area into which they have dispersed. The rapid growth and geographic expansion of wolves has led to a huge amount of conflict between hunters, ranchers, and environmentalists.

Lava Lake has experienced three separate depredation incidents where we have lost ewes, lambs, and guard dogs to wolves. Consistent with our mission to restore and protect native ecosystems, we believe that wolves play an important ecological role and, yet, we are faced with the need to protect our sheep from harm. Also, many of our customers feel very strongly about the value of wolves. How to resolve this apparent impasse?

We have worked with Defenders of Wildlife, Wildlife Services, and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game since 2002 to develop and implement proactive, nonlethal ways to keep both our sheep and wolves alive.

This work reached a new level in 2008 with the establishment of the Wood River Wolf Project. The success of this Project in enabling us and our neighboring ranchers to safely graze our sheep while coming into daily contact with the Phantom Hill wolf pack ranks as one of the most rewarding experiences we have had.

We are working with Defenders of Wildlife to ensure that the project goes forward again in 2009.

To read more, go to http://www.conservationregistry.org/projects/1710.

And, remember to buy our lamb at www.lavalakelamb.com. All profits from the sales of Lava Lake Lamb support our science and conservation work, including our work to ensure sheep and wolves can coexist.