The owners of a neighboring ranch bought the 2,960-acre Yorgason Mountain Camp on the western slope of the Bighorn Mountains, 19 miles east of Ten Sleep, Wyo., in Washakie County.

The land sold for $1,832,500, or $619 per deeded acre. This was 5.9% below the asking price of $2,016,000. The transaction included 300 U.S. Bureau of Land Management lease acres.

“This is excellent summer grazing pasture for livestock, and there is also outstanding elk and mule deer hunting in the area,” says John Pearson, owner-broker of Pearson Real Estate Co., based in Buffalo, Wyo.

Some areas are heavily covered with sagebrush, while other parts of the mountainous terrain are open grasslands with some trees.

“It’s very pretty country,” Pearson says.

The property also features reservoirs and an intermittent spring that flows through a canyon. The only other amenities were two rustic cabins with little value.

The seller was the Yorgason Trust. The heirs lived out of state and had been leasing the land for a number of years. The buyer was Falxa Land Co.

“It was a very nice add-on to their existing ranch,” Pearson says.

Northeast Wyoming
The 3,480-acre Ivy Creek Ranch — a working cattle ranch and wheat farm east of the small community of Arvada, Wyo. — sold to a neighboring rancher.

The listing price was $2,958,000, or $850 per deeded acre. The sale price was not disclosed. The transaction included 640 state lease acres, excellent livestock water facilities and distribution (two wells, 16 stock tanks, 7 miles of pipeline), a modest home, multiple outbuildings, livestock handling facilities and corrals.

The ranch was being used to graze about 150 cow-calf pairs on mixed grass and sage rangelands; farming operations consisted of about 1,200 acres of dryland winter wheat (600 acres are rotated annually with a yield of about 40 bushels per acre).

“The winter wheat, in addition to the grazing lands, will allow the buyers to better diversify their operation,” says John Chase, co-owner of Chase Brothers Properties with brother Galen. “They acquired a really nice, clean, functioning ranch. Everything was in very good condition; it was offered as a turnkey ranch, but not sold that way.”

The listing stated that the ranch could be purchased with all livestock and equipment, but the buyers opted to purchase no cattle and only some equipment.

An added appeal was trophy mule deer and pronghorn antelope hunting, with good populations of upland birds and other wildlife.

Chase says that the sellers are of retirement age and “took advantage of the good ranch market in this area.”