A newly signed conservation easement will preserve 1,270 acres in the northern San Luis Valley, including the historic Valley View Hot Springs, according to the local nonprofit Orient Land Trust, which worked with the Nature Conservancy on the project.
The property is 4 1/2 miles south of Villa Grove in Saguache County and includes Everson Ranch, which began as a cattle ranch in the valley in 1872, along with its water rights.
The conservation easement restricts any future development on the property.
The land trust said the property is home to more than a dozen natural hot springs, a rare high-altitude stream orchid and the Rio Grande chub, as well as being the summer location of a colony of an estimated 250,000 Mexican free-tailed bats in the nearby Orient mine.
Joey Bunch, The Denver Post
