When Doc and Emily Ridgway purchased Elk Creek Ranch in the early 1950’s, the cabins were vintage homesteader structures. The main cabin, now housing our dining room and kitchen, had a sod roof. Crude as the name may sound, the sod roof worked well. It shed the little moisture Wyoming receives and it shed much of the summer sun and heat. For almost a decade of operation, we kept the sod roof but in 1966 we replaced it with planks, masonite, and roofing paper.  We did, however, rebuild the tack house in the early 90’s and reinstalled a sod roof which continues to work well.

As we built the bunkhouses and rec hall in the 50’s and added cabins in the 60’s and 70’s, we used green roofing paper over different wooden roofs. In the late 70’s we built a car port for the ranch vans to keep them partially protected from the elements. Applying the roofing paper was always the finishing line for the summer project, so it was a time of great satisfaction and celebration.

Elk Creek, from day one, has made ranch chores and maintenance a part of the program; that work has been and is still central to real ranch life. The roofs suffer mightily, especially with the extremes of heat and cold. Every summer we take on the leaks that have developed over the winter, and we install new roofing materials in the most serious cases.

Curious, is it not, that our ranch experience has found that the sod roofs fared reasonably in comparison with roofing paper and asphalt shingles? Last year we put the roof on the new Trek cabin and this time we tried metal. Theoretically the new roof will last many years with no maintenance, but it was a task to install. We’ll have to see if it fares as well as the old dining room sod roof.