If you’ve spent any time on our homepage, you’ve seen the Living Map widget show a chain of connected preserves running from Antler Gap Forest down to Two Forks Riparian Corridor, with one obvious break in the middle. That break is Granite Creek Meadows, and closing it is the single acquisition we’re most focused on right now.
The basic facts: 180 acres of high-elevation, snowmelt-fed meadow sitting directly between Bramble Ridge Preserve and Two Forks Riparian Corridor, currently fenced grazing land, historically used as elk calving habitat before grazing pressure pushed elk populations to lower-quality ground. Without this parcel, an animal moving through our protected corridor has to cross nearly a mile of fenced private land and a two-lane county road — exactly the kind of gap that turns a wildlife corridor back into two disconnected habitat islands, the problem our whole corridor strategy exists to solve.
The timeline is real, not a soft fundraising target. The current owner, a rancher planning retirement, has given us a signed purchase option through 2027 — after that date, there’s no guarantee the land won’t go to a buyer with different plans for it. The total acquisition and initial stewardship budget is $4.2 million, and as of this year we’ve raised 61% of that figure through a combination of major gifts, a state wildlife connectivity grant, and cumulative smaller donations.
Every gift made through our Give page’s corridor fund option, and every new Founder-level membership, goes toward this specific acquisition first. If the math works the way we’re projecting, we expect to close the purchase in 2026, a year ahead of the option deadline — and when we do, the Living Map on our homepage will show, for the first time in the trust’s history, one continuous protected corridor from the ridge to the river.
