In the fall of 2008, Wes Curtis, Vice President for Government Affairs and Regional Services, was given oversight authority of SUU's Mountain Ranch. The 2,200-acre ranch is located 12 miles east of the main campus, up Cedar Canyon. View a map of the SUU Mountain Ranch.
(The SUU Mountain Center is not part of this assignment. The Mountain Center is managed by the SUU Office of Conference Services, while the Mountain Ranch assignment encompasses the land and natural resources of the ranch.)
The Mountain Ranch Web page is organized in the following manner and these links will take you to the corresponding section:
Mountain Ranch Resource Advisory Council and Resource Management Planning
Mountain Ranch Access & Use
Mountain Ranch History
The first task in late 2008 was to appoint a Mountain Ranch Resource Advisory Council (RAC), which is charged with creating a Mountain Ranch Resource Management Plan (RMP).
As of October 2009, the RAC consists of:
Patrick Moore, the Southwest Area Forester of the Utah Division of Forestry, Fire & State Lands, serves as an ex officio member of the RAC.
Brian Cottam, along with Kathleen McDowell, Executive Assistant for Regional Services, provides planning coordination and staff support for the RAC.
The RAC met multiple times throughout the 2008/09 academic year organizing the RAC, preparing and agreeing upon a process for creating the RMP, and inventorying existing uses of the Mountain Ranch. A detailed list of Mountain Ranch Desired Conditions was also created.
The RAC, along with other invited planning participants, resource specialists and students, will spend much of the 2009/10 academic year crafting the resource-specific chapters of the overall Mountain Ranch RMP. The first two RMP sections being addressed are a Forest Stewardship Plan component, with planning facilitated by Patrick Moore, and a Recreation Plan component, facilitated by Professor Briget Eastep.
The RAC has also initiated a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) planning process under the direction of the UT Division of Forestry and with adjacent property owners. The “Woods Ranch/Mountain Center CWPP” will be completed in fall 2009 and be included as a section of the Mountain Ranch RMP.
Future RMP sections may include Range & Grazing, Research & Academic Use, an administrative section (e.g., policies, risk management, access & use request forms, etc.), and other resource-specific sections as determined by the RAC.
The Mountain Ranch Resource Advisory Council has developed a protocol for requesting access to and use of the Mountain Ranch for research and education activities. For more information, please link to the application form and instructions as well as the required “Release, Assumption of Risk and Waiver Form”:
A Recreation Activity Application will be posted on this site upon completion of the Recreation component of the Mountain Ranch Resource Management Plan. At this time, the RAC will only consider research and education activity applications for use.
The History of the Southern Utah University Farms and Mountain Ranch (Southern Utah University Publications, April 1995) can be found in the Gerald R. Sherratt Library special collections.
For more information about the Mountain Ranch, RAC or RMP and associated planning, please contact Brian Cottam at cottamb@suu.edu or call 435-865-8023.
