Colorado holiday a respite of a different color

I was riding out of a dude ranch nestled at 7,200 feet on the Smith Fork of the Gunnison River along the Rockies' western slope. My wife, Elena, my brother-in-law Richard, and I had brought our six children, ages 3 to 15, to ride horses, fly-fish, practice archery, hike the Black Canyon, eat gourmet food, and live the cowboy lifestyle. The wildflowers were in bloom, the salmon fly hatch at its peak, and the views of snow-covered mountains made me think that, after a decade in venture capitalism, I was in a Marlboro commercial.

Smith Fork Ranch was homesteaded in 1890 and legend says it was traded for a banjo before being turned into a guest ranch in the 1940s. By the time Marley Hodgson Jr. and his wife, Linda, bought the property in 2000, the 289-acre ranch had fallen into severe disrepair.

Over barbeque ribs with the sound of the Smith Fork nearby, Hodgson told me the story of how the deal came to pass. The couple's real estate agent had been looking for years to find them a piece of the "working west." They were preparing to sell their luxury leather goods company, Ghurka, when they got an urgent phone call in Manhattan to come to Colorado. The agent had spotted the ranch while flying his plane from Telluride to Aspen. He landed and asked for a lift out to the property from the cow town of Crawford, about 7 1/2 miles away.

The Hodgsons bought the ranch and decided to restore it to its original condition and function. Artisan carpenters numbered each log of each building, took the structures apart, and rebuilt them on the original footprints. All the renovation and improvements reflect an attention to detail and concern for authenticity and comfortable elegance that help makes Smith Fork Ranch feel like home to guests. It opened in 2002 and has quickly gained a reputation for offering one of the most intimate and luxurious dude ranch experiences in the country.

We found out about the ranch from travel brokers Abercrombie & Kent, who recommended it as particularly kid-friendly. We flew to Denver and took one of the most breathtaking drives our country has to offer over Vail Pass and along the raging Colorado River. Near the ranch is a massive rock monolith about 1,000 feet high that looks right out of an old Western movie set, and, we discovered, is near where rocker Joe Cocker lives.