America’s second-largest landowner is a media mogul gone wild

For a tiny town surrounded by the US’s largest desert, Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, boasts an improbable number of peculiarities. For a start, there’s its name, which was changed in 1950 as a result of a dare by the NBC radio game show host Ralph Edwards. Then there’s its geology, built around a series of hot springs claimed to produce some of the most heavily mineralised water in the US. And finally there’s its location, two hours south of Albuquerque in the desolate Chihuahuan Desert, making it the closest town to Spaceport America, the facility from where Virgin Galactic made its first commercial space flight in June of this year.

A lone juniper tree, Ladder Ranch.Credit: Sean Fitzgerald

Given all this hoopla, you could easily visit the town and be blissfully unaware that another significant initiative is under way nearby – one that’s been instigated by an unlikely proponent.

Best known for being the founder of CNN, the US’s first 24-hour cable news network, American media mogul Ted Turner can also add sports team owner, sailing champion and philanthropist to his resume. He’s donated vast sums to environmental causes and in 1998 famously gave $US1 billion to the United Nations.

Over the past few decades, he’s been quietly buying up great swathes of American wilderness, to the point where he’s now the country’s second-largest private landowner. Why? To safeguard these precious environments and the valuable biodiversity they contain. As he puts it: “When we connect with nature, we heal ourselves. When we protect nature, we heal the planet.”

Ted Turner’s motto, when it comes to the environment, is “save everything”.Credit: David Goldman

Two of his New Mexico reserves – Ladder and Armendaris – are a short drive from Truth or Consequences, so in 2013 he bought the town’s Sierra Grande Lodge & Spa and started offering guests the chance to explore these untamed sanctuaries on a uniquely American safari amid affordably luxurious surrounds. And while the reserves’ flora and fauna are the main drawcards, there are other unexpected highlights.

American media mogul Ted Turner acquired Sierra Grande Lodge & Spa in 2013.

“I get chills when I walk over these sites,” says guide Amy Morrison as we stroll among the remains of several pit houses built by the Mimbres, a prehistoric North American people who lived in this region from about 900AD to 1350AD.

During our half-day safari on the 63,000-hectare Ladder reserve, we visit several Mimbres sites, including the remnants of a small village and a yawning rock overhang decorated with faded pink pictographs. In the latter, Morrison shows me shards of Mimbres pottery and delicate chert arrowheads that were found nearby, plus a shrunken corn cob that’s probably about 900 years old.

As we drive around the reserve, following dirt tracks that squirm through cacti-filled plains, skirting sycamore forests and climbing over lava-topped mesas, we pass the ruined homesteads of angora goat farmers that eked out an existence here in the late 1800s. Much more inviting is the elegant four-bedroom country house once used by Turner and his then-wife Jane Fonda, which is now available for exclusive hire with a private chef.

Country style: the luxury spa at Sierra Grande.

Sadly, the reserve’s bison, bears and mountain lions remain elusive, but we do spot elk, deer and dozens of the region’s 250-plus species of birds. Before leaving, Morrison shows me around the reserve’s captive breeding centre, which has had remarkable success with high-profile endangered species such as the Mexican gray wolf (at one time it was estimated there were only five left in the wild), as well as less-heralded, but no less important, creatures, like the Chiricahua leopard frog and the Bolson tortoise. For Turner, there is no hierarchy – his conversation motto is simple: “Save everything.”

A Mexican gray wolf at Ladder, where reintroduction work is being done to save the species.

THE DETAILS

Fly

Qantas flies from Sydney and Melbourne to Albuquerque via Los Angeles. From Albuquerque, Truth or Consequences is a two-hour drive south. See qantas.com

Stay

Located two blocks from downtown, Sierra Grande Lodge & Spa is a boutique 17-room property with an onsite spa and private indoor and outdoor hot springs. Rooms from $286, which includes a continental breakfast and a 30-minute soak. See tedturnerreserves.com/sierra-grande

More

newmexico.org

visittheusa.com.au

The writer was a guest of Sierra Grande Lodge & Spa, New Mexico Tourism and Brand USA.