Withers Ranch in West Texas.
Stepping out onto the timber-framed patio at West Texas’s Withers Ranch, coffee in hand, it’s hard not to be struck by the sheer starkness of the Davis Mountains, rising hundreds of feet above. The bottom of Madera Canyon curves down past the adobe house, with rock outcroppings pockmarking the slopes. The juniper and pinyon pines that dot the hillsides are almost assuredly hiding bedded mule deer and coyotes, maybe even a lone cougar. But the animals are invisible from the back porch in all but the twilight hours. Even driving up to the ranch itself, down eleven miles of unpaved roads, is an adventure, like driving across an African savanna, with montane grasslands stretching out to the horizon.