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Cowboy applies values learned on the ranch to endocrinology
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For E. Chester Ridgway, MD, “home” is back at the ranch.
Ridgway may be head of the division of endocrinology, metabolism and diabetes at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, but his roots are in Wyoming. There, he and about 30 family members run the Elk Creek Ranch — a dude ranch for teenagers.
“It is so different from the typical academia. You immediately leave your suit, white jacket and stethoscope and you are in blue jeans and cowboy boots carrying a saddle and bridle,” he told Endocrine Today. “Instead of trying to solve the genetic cause for some disease, you are trying to figure out if this horse is going to buck you off. One world to another.”
His parents bought the 320-acre ranch — 40 miles outside of Cody, Wyo., and enclosed by Yellowstone National Park and Shoshoni National Forest — in the late 1940s. The ranch was originally a family retreat, “a place to congregate,” but in the 1950s it was turned into a teenage dude ranch as a way to support itself.
 E. Chester Ridgway |
Today, Elk Creek Ranch is a wilderness co-ed experience for teenagers, with a traditional camp program and a wilderness backpacking program. Ridgway has an integral role as president of the ranch and when home, he runs business meetings and teaches teens to ride horses during the day. He has plenty of horse riding experience to show for it.
“Being raised in Cody we were on horses at age 2 and never came off of them,” he said.
For Ridgway, the ranch is where he picked up many of the values that he applies to his work in endocrinology today. He learned that “the idea you have to work as a team is critically important to succeed at ranching. So is the value of life, when you measure it up against a horse, an eagle or a grizzly bear. Next to all of these we are just part of an ecosystem and we have to coexist.”
Ridgway followed in his father’s footsteps, who was one of the first physicians in Cody and the county health officer. When he was younger, Ridgway, his siblings and their parents would pack a picnic lunch, climb into a Jeep and go deep into the wilderness prairie to track down cattle and sheep ranchers and make them take their immunizations.
“We were giving influenza shots and smallpox vaccines. My dad had to coax these old crusty cowboys to pull their sleeve up and take the shot when they were scared to death of it. Very amazing to see these hardened men cry at a little shot,” he said.
Life as a rancher
Elk Creek Ranch is owned and operated by the Ridgway family; no foreman, no caretaker, “nobody else does the work while we sit around and drink beer,” he said. In addition to the dude ranch, the Ridgways also raise Arabian horses, 56 at last count.
According to the Elk Creek Ranch website, the dude ranch is a “summer of challenge, confronting each individual with rugged wilderness surroundings and a rustic lifestyle.” Wilderness is a perfect description. The ranch is in Wyoming’s Sunlight Basin, with varying elevations consisting of deep valleys and snow-capped mountain peaks.
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“We decided from the get-go this was not going to be a country club; it was going to be a working ranch where kids would do ranch work and care for the land, horses and conservation. The rest of the time they could have the Western experience: riding horses, climbing mountains, backpacking and fishing,” he said.
Adolescence is a vulnerable stage, according to Ridgway.
“If you can actually redirect their energy and get them involved in bigger issues like the environment and conservation, that is an amazing transformation,” he said.
Ridgway made it clear that running a ranch is not all fun and games. He helps do pasturing, which involves irrigation and growing hay for the horses to feed off of, and horseshoeing, “the worst bone-bending work in the world.”
The ranch has been passed down from one generation to another. Every building on the ranch was built by hand by the Ridgway family. Today there are close to 20 buildings, including cabins, bunkhouses, barns and corrals. Visiting the ranch during winter can be quite a challenge.
“In addition to dangerous blizzards, these cabins are not winterized. We have to cut wood and bring it in and try to stay warm in –26 degrees. Funny how important a big, dry stack of old wood becomes,” he said.
Ridgway said that he does not work as an endocrinologist by day and as a rancher at night. He goes home when he can, like he did during breaks in college and medical school. But, he said the moment he retires, he is going to raise that next great horse and spend even more time back home on the ranch. – by Katie Kalvaitis
For more information:
- For more information visit www.elkcreekranch.com.