There may be life off the ranch, but any Fremont County farmer or rancher will tell you – The #aglife is “the good life!” #Aglife is a County 10 series, brought to you by Wyoming Community Bank, that pulls the curtain back on farm and ranch life in Fremont County.
The family farm is an iconic image of America, though this operation is clearly a ranch as oldest son Gage was quick to point out.
Greg and Heather Bartlett and their five sons epitomize the adventurous nature of trying to carve out lives in the beautiful but unforgiving landscape that is Wyoming.
Both are descendants of families who long ago settled in the Basin of the North Platte River near Encampment, Riverside, and Saratoga. This is a scenic, but physically demanding area to raise cattle, and forage for those animals.
Kal and Vickie Herring run a family ranch in Southern Carbon County. It’s where Heather grew up before earning a special education degree. Greg’s great-grandfather Garland Phillip Bartlett lived in Springville, Utah, and was working in the early days of the 20th century on the Union Pacific Railroad when he learned of available land in the area south of the rail line near the historic Grand Encampment.
Garland started the ranching business that has now grown to five generations.
Garland’s son, Greg’s grandfather, was also named Garland Phillip Bartlett (jr.) and Greg’s dad is the third in the family with the same name, Garland Phillip (III), and the same shared passion for cattle, the outdoors, and the wonder of life in the demanding valleys on the west side of the Snowy Range.
Greg Paul Bartlett carries on the tradition with his five sons.
Gage is 22, Gavin is 20, the twins Grady and Grant are 18 and just graduated from Saratoga High School, and the youngest, Griffin is 14 and about to enter his freshman year at Saratoga.
Heather’s family arrived from Gordon, Nebraska, where family lore has her grandfather and his brothers working in the fields of Sand Hills when an Army recruiter arrived and took the boys off to serve in World War II. Her grandfather was a bombardier on B-17s during the war.
“Our family has been in agriculture ever since,” Greg said.
The Bartlett family ranch was sold, and the young married couple set out on their own.
They purchased their first ranch behind the old Wind River High School near Morton in 1998. They sold their first venture after a year and moved to Lincoln County.
From 1999 to 2003 they owned a ranch near Cokeville, that’s where the two oldest boys were born.
For anyone who remembers those early years in the 21st century, it was a bad time for agriculture. A long duration drought across Wyoming, especially in the western part of the state created shortages in feed and limited crop production. Many ranchers sold off their herds during those days.
Heather and Greg sold the Cokeville ranch and headed back home.
“We bought the property from Heather’s parents,” Greg said.
That property quickly expanded from a 320-acre spread, with 2100 additional acres leased from family and neighbors and a 59,800 grazing permit in the Medicine Bow National Forest.
In 2001 a major fire swept through the area, destroying 55,000 acres of their lease. They left it dormant for two years, but nature has a way of reinvigorating itself, and the grazing prospects for this summer are tremendous.
“The grass is solid, it’s deep and it’s thick,” Greg said.
The lease extends to 9,000 feet altitude and provides excellent summer range for their southern herd.
In 2018, they expanded to Fremont County, purchasing a 360-acre parcel on 8 Mile Road just a mile or so south of Midvale.
They now run 650 cows between their two main locations. They winter 280 head at 8 Mile under the direction of Gage, and 370 head on the home place near Encampment.
The operation is a diverse one in both number and pure geography.
The southern herd winters on their first purchase from Heather’s parents with summer grazing in the nearby national forest.
The northern herd spends summers on leased range land south of Rawlins before they’re trucked back to Fremont County for the winter. They calve each herd separately in both locations in the spring.
Calving was a challenge with this year’s brutal weather.
As was the case for many ranchers, the losses due to heavy snow and sub-zero temperatures were horrible.
“We lost about 20 percent of the calves this year,” Greg said. “In a normal year, it’s less than 10 percent.”
The operation is set to breed 100 new heifers each year and calve those 650 cows, but in ranching, especially ranching in Carbon and Fremont Counties there is never a “set” year.
In addition to feeding, and managing their own herd, they custom hay for neighbors and use the feedlot on 8 Mile to winter other people’s cattle.
On a recent afternoon Gage, Greg, and their hired man Dusty Buffington were working with Dr. Lorna McPeek of Rawlins in Bangs vaccinating 380 head of cattle owned by Kelly Land and Cattle Company of Carbon County. Mike Crimmins the manager for Kelly Land and Cattle worked on the vaccine and tattooing process as well, running the hydraulic head catch. Kerry Cooper, a neighboring rancher helped in moving the cattle through the process as well.
Another service provided by Bartlett Livestock involved the farming aspect of ranching. They irrigate, cut, and bale hay for a large number of neighbors as well as their own operation. In the Platte River Basin, it’s usually just a single cutting of grass hay, but on their 270 acres of hay ground in Fremont County they get two full cuttings of grass/alfalfa and often cut a third time leaving the hay in windrows for cattle to graze.
“We put up 10,800 3×4 and round bales last year,” Gage said.
That equates to approximately 6,000 tons of hay. In anyone’s book, that’s a lot of hay.
Putting up all that forage requires equipment, the Bartletts have six swathers and several different size and style balers with tractors powerful enough to bale those large-sized bales.
“We have three good swathers going at any one time,” Greg said.
As with any operation, people have their specialties. When it comes to cutting hay, mom and the twins are the best operators.
With irrigation, Gavin is the go-to guy. He enters his senior year at the University of Wyoming this fall with a major in accounting. He plans to go on to law school and study riparian law. Water law is a fitting major for the irrigation specialist in the house.
Gage, like his dad, is an all-around hand, working cattle, driving equipment, calving, operating forage equipment and he has a CDL like his father for hauling cattle and hay when needed.
Another family business is Rugged Peaks Transportation, also in Encampment.
Griffin is just 14, but you’ll find him at the controls of a tractor raking hay, running a baler, or chasing water across a field like the rest of the clan.
With all this work, you’d think the family is tied to one or both of the ranches, but that’s a far cry from the truth.
Greg played basketball for the Saratoga Panthers in high school, and Heather was an Encampment Tiger. She was all-state in Class 1-A in 1995 and 96 before playing for Casper College. All four boys have been all-state basketball players over the last few years. Gage was a three-time selection, earning top honors at Encampment in 2016, before transferring to Saratoga where he made the elite squad in 2017 and 2018.
Gavin was all-state for Saratoga in 2021 and was part of Saratoga’s first state championship team in 2020. Grady and Grant earned the same all-state honors in 2022 and 2023.
All four boys ran cross country, and the twins have the honor of finishing first and second all four years in high school in the Class 2-A state championships.
Grant was a four-time state champion, and Grady was the state runner-up from 2019 to 2022.
That’s a lot of miles for a family nestled far from a main highway on the western slope of the Snowy Range, but Mom and Dad are just as active.
Heather is the head girls’ basketball coach at Saratoga and a special education teacher. Greg is the Saratoga activities director and serves as Heather’s assistant coach.
Add just a little more to the family plate with Greg a very active basketball official taking games all over the stage. Gage followed in his footsteps and worked his first state basketball tournament as an official last spring in Casper.
The Bartlett’s come by it honestly, their grandfathers Garland Bartlett and Russel Herring played together in the early 1930s on the Saratoga High School basketball team.
Heather and Greg take time to expose their boys to larger athletic venues when time permits.
“We watched Kansas play Duke in the round of eight in the NCAA tournament one year,” Gage said. “That was really something.”
What the future holds for the family ranch is unknown. Gage is running one of the operations on his own with help from his parents and brothers when he needs it here in Fremont County. Greg and Heather manage the other operation but the younger four sons all show interest in the family ranch and may make that their careers.
With unstable markets, a roller coaster economy, and Wyoming’s propensity to boom and bust it’s anybody’s guess what the future is in the family ranch, but for now, it works for the seven members of the Bartlett family.
“We’ve had the perfect life,” Greg said. “As a family, we’ve had some really great times.”