The Main Ranch is seven miles outside of Hyattville, Wyoming, a small town with a population of 100 people. We are 50 miles northeast of Worland, Wyoming in the Big Horn Basin. The mouth of the Paintrock Canyon opens into our pastures and the Paintrock Creek runs through the ranch. The main ranch is on the west slope of the Big Horn Mountains and the Cloud Peak Wilderness area.
The topography of the ranch varies from arid badlands to irrigated pastures to lush mountain meadows. Elevation ranges from 4,000 to 10,000 feet. Each season of the year offers varied faces of the landscape. Temperatures in the summer can be in triple digits, while winter weather can bring below zero days.
Paint Rock Canyon Enterprises makes significant social contributions, as do the individuals who make up our team. Our commitment to resource stewardship and environmental quality mean that shared and private resources are conserved, ensuring and improving water quality, recreational access, and land health for the greater community.
John and Carolyn Alm provide a unique summer experience for “underprivileged, at-risk, but high-potential” ninth graders from the Los Angeles inner city at Camp Paintrock, sited on the ranch. 72 student-campers undergo a rigorous selection process in their eighth grade year, spending 5 weeks at the Camp in two session of 36 student-campers at a time. Activities at the Camp include but are not limited to horseback riding, horsepacking, outdoor living skills, archery, arts and crafts, hiking/camping, natural studies, swimming, canoeing, fly fishing, rock climbing and rappelling … just to name a few. Field trips included whitewater rafting the Shoshone River near Cody, hands-on learning at the Buffalo Bill Cody Historical Center, multi-day overnight trips into Yellowstone National Park, paleontology studies at the Red Gulch dinosaur tracks site, and overnight trips into the Paint Rock Canyon BLM and Big Horn National Forest lands. After the camp experience, significant activities and resources are offered to the Paintrock Canyon Program participants back in L.A., helping them maintain a steady, healthy direction through their four years of high school and assisting with the college/university application and placement process. If you would like to learn more about the camp visit Camp Paintrock.
“HYATTVILLE, 23 m. (4,457 feet, 208 pop.), is
a cow-town of quaint false-front and tin-roofed buildings, at the junction of
Medicine Lodge and Paintrock Creeks.
Founded in the 1880’s, it still retains much of the temper and severity
of the frontier. No highway or railroad
reaches it. It was known as Paintrock
until 1886, when Sam W. Hyatt of Buffalo became its first postmaster. Cowboys carried the mail once a month over
the Owl Creek Mountains from Fort Washakie, 175 miles southwest. When pioneers of the Big Horn Basin are
guests at Hyattville’s annual Old-Timers’ Day, each
old-timer wears a blue ribbon announcing the date of his arrival in the state…”
The ranch was established and first owned by the
Hyatt family for 3 generations and known as the Hyatt Ranch.
Bill and Paula Grigsby then bought the ranch in 1991 from the Hyatts.
John and Carolyn Alm purchased the ranch from the Grigsbys in 1998 and began making
plans for Camp Paintrock.