Ride a whirlybird to the Old West

To romantics 'round the world, the American Southwest means cowboys and cattle ranches among the most stunning landscapes in the world. Foreign visitors come in droves to experience the quintessential West as they saw it in films or imagined it from books.

Yet urban Westerners seem to remember only now that it still exists. One place you taste it is the 106,000-acre Grand Canyon Ranch, in northwest Arizona. Furthermore, visitors can add a modern twist, seeing the Grand Canyon via helicopter. Although the ranch is less than a few hours' drive from Las Vegas, the more popular way to get there is a scenic helicopter ride to the ranch's private helipad. Via these man-made whirlwinds, it's just 35 minutes from Las Vegas' bright lights and elbow-bumping party crowds to the elbow-room of buttes and plateaus covered with Joshua trees.

Formerly called the Diamond Bar, this historic ranch lies between the West Rim of the Grand Canyon and the Music Mountains, bordering the Hualapai Indian Reservation. The area teems with wildlife, including mule deer, mountain lions, bobcats and wild horses.

Recently, my daughter Charlotte and I had two free days, so we drove there instead of flying. Arriving at the ranch's main entrance by mid-morning, we were briefly detained by cattle blocking our progress, as if to impress upon newcomers that whatever else goes on here, this is still a working ranch.

These are Corriente cattle, not raised for food but for steer-roping. Their long, pointed horns looked threatening, but insistently inching my car forward persuaded the "welcoming party" to let us through.

Typical guests at the ranch stay only a day, but it's an action-packed one. Their flight from Las Vegas via Heli USA's jet helicopters includes a dip into the Grand Canyon. At the ranch's private helipad, visitors climb out of a 21st-century whirlybird and into a 19th-century-style wagon. It's just a five-minute ride to "headquarters," where the ranch's main buildings, equipment, cowboys and working horses are concentrated.

We settled into one of 10 guest cabins. Ours included a full-size bed downstairs and three twin beds in a loft. The bathroom had a claw-foot tub, and there were a fireplace and covered front porch. If you prefer, during warmer months you can stay in a teepee.

Depending on the hour they arrive, guests are quickly offered either a hearty breakfast or lunch.

We headed outdoors to play horseshoes and practice lassoing a calf -- that is, a plastic model of a calf's head mounted on a sawhorse. Our instructor was Mike Brubaker, who also entertains guests with cowboy songs and participates in the occasional stuntman's "gunfight." Later, he accompanied us around the ranch and shared some local history.

Brubaker led us under the canopy of a mature mulberry tree to a one-room stone cabin, which he called the oldest homestead in Mohave County. Settlers Wellington and Ethel Starkey built it in 1867. Finding abundant water from a natural spring, the couple planted an orchard, raised cattle and had two more children while living here, adding to the one they had.

Other old buildings include the ranch house, built in 1905, and the ruins of an old Butterfield Stage Coach Line building from the 1870s.

In 1904, Tap Duncan, a shady character thought to be associated with the Hole-in-the-Wall gang and particularly with the wild Kid Curry, bought the property and became a successful, respected rancher. In 1915, Duncan hired a cowboy named Bruce Kiskaddon, who happened to exhibit a knack for parodying popular songs. Some say it was Duncan who encouraged him to turn his talents to writing about life on the range. Kiskaddon's sentimental but realistic poems are now favorites of today's cowboy poets and their fans.

Widely recognized in his lifetime, he published his last book in 1947, three years before his death at the age of 72.

That afternoon, we took a sunset horseback ride with a wrangler, Carlos. It took half an hour to ascend the ridge, but once there, we enjoyed far-reaching views into Nevada and Utah, by the day's kindest light. Polishing an already perfect moment, somebody handed us glasses of sparkling apple juice in champagne flutes.

Out by a fire the night we were there, The Diamond Bar Saloon served real beer and wine. Blankets were passed around, for the elevation here is about 5,000 feet, chillier than Las Vegas. Our campfire group was unusually small, 14 guests. Besides us, there were a couple from Las Vegas, six from Great Britain, two from South America and one each from Bulgaria and Finland.

The next morning after breakfast, we boarded the wagon with about 20 other people and rode to the helipad. Some were headed back to Las Vegas on the final leg of their trip while some of us took a sightseeing round-trip over to and into the Grand Canyon.

You are not allowed to fly over or within the majority of the Grand Canyon, but here you can. Besides the pilot, the helicopter can seat six people.

We put on our seat belts and headphones, then the doors were closed and within seconds, we were airborne on our 19-mile flight. Soon, the canyon loomed ahead; we were flying over the plateau at low altitude and suddenly shot out over the edge and thousands of feet of empty space beneath us -- a surreal moment of simultaneous terror and breathtaking beauty.

Then we descended gently into the canyon, losing about 1,500 feet in altitude below the rim. We had a clear view of the Colorado River, which here was flanked by strips of green water-loving plants and above that, a million years in the making, the colorful strata of the cliffs. We headed up the main canyon perhaps a couple of miles and then turned up Quartermaster Canyon, back to the plateau.

It was an amazing ride, but both Charlotte and I felt relief when the helicopter landed at the ranch. This wrapped up our short, yet action-packed visit. We'd been to the Old West, and it was time to head back to the new. But as we drove homeward through Joshua trees and free-roaming cattle, we weren't too dignified to sing about it: "Move 'em out, head 'em up, Head 'em up, move 'em on. Move 'em out, head 'em up: Rawhide!"

Contact Deborah Wall at deborabus@aol.com.