5 months ago
3
0
Posted On: May 11th 2026, 01:40 pm
Spent the weekend exploring the parched heart of Baca County, in the southeastern most corner of Colorado, documenting the worst drought in Mountain West history. Two Buttes Reservoir, normally 700 acres and 25 feet deep, sprawls completely dry, thousands of dead fish baking in the sun where water once teemed with life. Ninety years after this land was ground zero of the American Dust Bowl, the cycle has returned, prompting Governor Jared Polis to activate Phase 2 of the state’s Drought Response Plan two months ago.
Vance Alfrey, 84, still climbs his corral gates on 800 acres of land. His family has ranched here since 1916, and standing beside the family cabin he regaled me with a riveting story of his grandparents and parents huddling inside during the great black blizzards of 1935 and 1936, stuffing wet rags under the doors to keep the dust out as a three mile high wall of dust turned the sky black for half an hour at a time. That cabin still stands. So does the old red barn beside it, its paint peeling but its bones intact, survivors of the same drought now returning. Six generations of cowboys who stayed when enduring was the harder choice. Springfield, the impoverished county seat, holds on the same way. @gettyimages
Vance Alfrey, 84, still climbs his corral gates on 800 acres of land. His family has ranched here since 1916, and standing beside the family cabin he regaled me with a riveting story of his grandparents and parents huddling inside during the great black blizzards of 1935 and 1936, stuffing wet rags under the doors to keep the dust out as a three mile high wall of dust turned the sky black for half an hour at a time. That cabin still stands. So does the old red barn beside it, its paint peeling but its bones intact, survivors of the same drought now returning. Six generations of cowboys who stayed when enduring was the harder choice. Springfield, the impoverished county seat, holds on the same way. @gettyimages
More posts
