The Medicine Bow Lodge offers an authentic family dude ranch experience and home cooking!
By Eileen Ogintz
I don’t blame the horses. I wouldn’t want to get into the freezing creek either. So we turn our balky horses around and head for another route back to the corral.
It’s our first day at Medicine Bow Lodge near Saratoga WY in the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest. Beautiful area in Southern Wyoming! We are visiting several guest ranches as well as hot springs resort in Wyoming this week.
This is a small, authentic ranch—just 18 guests and 10 staff, including owners Debbie and Tim Bishop. “When people call, I ask a lot of questions. I don’t want anyone to have expectations we can’t meet,” said Debbie Bishop, who is the ranch chef, AKA “Mrs. Fishing Britches. (Bison meat loaf one night; smoked salmon another.)
People especially love her pies and Tim’s oatmeal molasses cookies. “They take a baggie of them when they leave,” she said.
Because the ranch is small, the staff can customize experiences. My husband Andy and I go out on a mellow meadow ride (minus crossing the creek!) while a group of eight ladies, horsewomen from the East Coast, went off with Don Byfield, a retired teacher from Oklahoma, on an all-day ride. His wife, Byfield said, prefers to stay home when he visits ranches every year. “I like small ranches,” he said. “There are always people to visit with.”
JoAnn Bashore, a retired Maryland state park ranger, said her group have been friends for many years, bonding over riding together. They visit a different ranch annually. “We don’t go anywhere we don’t have fun,” she said.
Later in the season, there is fly fishing in mountain lakes, overnight pack trips that kids especially love, as well as plenty of hiking, e-biking, and just relaxing on the deck overlooking the rushing Barrett Creek.
There isn’t a spa or artisanal cocktails or a big wine cellar… It’s BYOB. And that’s just the way guests like it. One repeat guest has booked the entire ranch to celebrate their 50th anniversary; another with friends and family who want to focus on photography and food.
Hayden Jones first came with his mom Tammy on vacation from the Midwest and now is spending the summer working here. “We get that a lot,” Debbie Bishop said.
Jones’ mom already has been here once and will be back later in the season. “I didn’t grow up with horses but my kids will,” he said. “I love being away from civilization in the mountains.” The ranch, just open from June-September starts at $475 per day for adults, $420 for teens, $360 for kids 6-12, and free for kids five and under. This season is already fully booked, although there are occasional openings due to last-minute cancellations. The Bishops recommend the experience is best for kids six and older. The rates are slightly less for those staying six nights; there are also special adult-only weeks and ladies weeks as well.
In fact, Tim Bishop notes, they get letters from families thanking them for helping the kids get away from their devices. There is only Wi-Fi in the lodge, but no one seems to mind as everyone is so busy, including in the evenings when there are campfires (and s’mores of course), local entertainers, movies, and board games. “People just don’t have time to unplug like this and play a board game with their kids at home,” Debbie Bishop notes.
She laughs that she never planned on marrying a cowboy, much less running a ranch. She and Tim met, in fact, when they were in their early twenties working at a guest ranch in Colorado. They married, returned to Louisiana where Tim was from, and had three kids while he worked in a family business. But Tim never gave up his dream. He was a severe asthmatic, and doctors told the couple they needed to move to the mountains to get away from environments that triggered his asthma attacks.
It took them five years, but they eventually found Medicine Bow Lodge in 2002. It has opened in 1917 and had been through several owners. The Bishops bought the ranch, bringing their three kids then aged 10, 12, and 13. “The youngest thought he was in heaven the older two thought their lives were over, but they turned into our best workers,” Debbie Bishop said.
But she doesn’t think any of their kids will want to take over the ranch. They are all parents (the Bishops have 11 grandchildren with one on the way) and live in Iowa, Washington DC, and Nashville.
Meanwhile, Tim and Debbie Bishop nurture their staff and their guests determined that they all have a memorable experience. Even if it rains.
Debbie Bishop recalled the kids’ disappointment when rain derailed their overnight pack trip that couldn’t be rescheduled because the two families were leaving. Tim Bishop set up camp indoors in the lounge, complete with tents, s’mores, and storytelling.
“They left with the best memories,” Debbie Bishop said.
And that’s the idea, of course.