The story
- Basement
Welcome to Black Tail Ridge Ranch. 240 deeded acres at the top of Mendocino Pass Road above Covelo, in deer Zone B1. The north line abuts 2,743 acres of state land, and that state block opens straight onto Mendocino National Forest and the Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel Wilderness: the southern end of a 2,071,758-acre public block that runs 147 miles unbroken to the Oregon line. One over-the-counter B tag hunts every zone the corridor crosses: B1 at the gate, B5 in the Yolla Bolly, B2 through the Trinities, B6 to the Siskiyou crest. Blacktail is the name and the game. Round Valley is known Boone & Crockett country, and this parcel sits inside the A-30 Covelo Archery Buck Hunt and the M-11 muzzleloader hunt. Bear tags are over the counter and open with deer season. Pigs run year-round with no limit. The ranch sits inside the Mendocino Roosevelt/Tule elk zone, where elk are taken almost entirely on private ground with the landowner's permission. Here, you are the landowner. 595 miles of designated OHV route lie within 25 miles; the nearest is 2.3 miles from the gate. Steelhead run the Middle Fork Eel below the valley, and stocked trout lakes in the area. Wild pig, bear, blacktail, quail, turkey, band-tail: one camp, no drive. The camp is a lodge with a stone hearth, a great room that seats a full party, a kitchen under the windows, additional dwellings for the crew, a shop, a spring-fed pond, solar on site, and a deck with a hot tub looking over the Eel River valley. Mendocino County zones this ground F-L Forest Land, minimum lot area 160 acres (Mendocino County Code Sec. 20.064.025; one dwelling per 160 acres under Sec. 20.064.030). This means every private parcel in the surrounding country is classed Forest Land or Rangeland, both 160-acre minimums (Sec. 20.060.025); the rest is public land. No subdivisions, no cabin tracts. The neighbors stay ranches. Price out 240 acres with a lodge anywhere else in California that opens onto two million public acres. You will not find it at this asking price. You will not find it at all.
