Lot 80

Some tracts sell themselves on a pond or a bluff. Tract 80 doesn't, and it isn't trying to. This is plain working ground, 100.85 acres of ranch land for sale on Alamo Ranch, 13 miles south of Rocksprings in Edwards County, Texas, and it gives back in proportion to what you put into walking it. Juniper stands thick. Oak mottes break it up, white stone shows where the soil wore thin, and grass fills the gaps when a wet spring gets hold. Bring boots with a hard sole.

The gain here is real, about 204 ft from the lower ground near 2,037 ft up to roughly 2,241 ft at the top. That's not a gentle roll. You climb, you drop into a bottom, you climb again, and the place keeps part of itself hidden until you've covered all of it on foot. Down in the lower folds it feels private in a way flat ground never manages. What you can see from the upper end depends on where you set your feet and how the neighboring ridges stack up, so we'd rather walk you to the top and let you judge it than make promises about it.

A creek bed cuts roughly 1,530 ft across the tract, entering along the northern edge and working its way out the west side. It runs when the weather says so, the way creeks in this part of the Plateau do, and even bone dry it's the coolest, easiest travel route on the place. Deer use it. So does everything else with legs. Shadowing that same path, about 1,510 ft of existing dirt ranch road lets you get a truck well inside the tract instead of parking at the edge and hiking in, though it's an existing road and nothing more, and we'll walk the access paperwork with you so you know exactly what you're buying.

Near the way in sits a flat of white gravel and stone where somebody cleared a spot and set a weathered box blind on pipe legs. Nothing fancy. It tells you how this ground has been used and where a person who knew the place chose to sit and wait. The juniper around it grows tall and dark green even in the heat, with live oak scattered in mottes that throw real shade by midday.

Aoudad. That's what people remember about this corner of the ranch. A herd of 40 and better has been seen on the drive up to this tract, free-ranging sheep that work the rough ledges like it's a walk in the park (for them it is). Whitetail and axis use the same slopes, and elk have been spotted a few tracts away, free-range Texas elk that answer to no fence. If this ground is good at one thing, it's growing animals and giving a lot of species room to live and thrive. Commercial hunting isn't allowed anywhere on the ranch, which keeps pressure light and the herds settled.

Restrictions are light. They're written to keep the ranch looking like a ranch, not to tell you how to build. Electricity runs near the county road and at various points on the ranch, and we'll be straight with you about what it would involve to bring service to this particular tract. Owner financing is available with as little as 5% down. The tract is surveyed, and the survey and title work govern where every edge sits.

Come in the cool months if you can. The juniper smells sharpest when a norther has blown, and you'll cover more acreage in a morning than you will in August heat. Wear something you don't mind snagging. We'll start at the gate, follow the dirt road down toward the creek bed, then climb to the upper end on foot so you can feel all 204 ft of it in your legs. Call and we'll set a day.