FR 9460T

FR 9460T is the prototypical high country ranch road common in the Coconino National Forest. The trail winds through the Ponderosa pines, where elk and cattle comingle during the warm mountain summers. A loop of weathered rope from an old lariat drooped over a post keeps a rickety gate closed. Drift fences meander amongst the trees, tended even today by slender weathered cowboys on horseback. Earthen dams check small drainages capturing priceless runoff water for stock and wildlife. Nearby is Foxboro Ranch. In the early parts of the 20th century, well-to-do Eastern boys came to the "ranch school" at Foxboro. Besides the usual classes in mathematics, history, literature, and the sciences, the boys learned about work, cattle, and the feeling of being in a big land on a good horse. FR 9460T ends at a fence near the border of the small patch of private land left to Foxboro Ranch in the midst of this immense national forest. Those boys nearly a century ago rode that fence. It will still be there the next time you ride out on FR 9460T.