Pops and Cima’s Escape to the Canyon

Pops and Cima’s Escape to the Canyon is the dangerous, carefully concealed flight that carried them and their livestock from the ranch into the canyon. The journey was not a simple retreat: Pops fought through armed roadblocks, the party suffered losses, and father and daughter then altered the route behind them to make the canyon harder to reach.

Departure Under Threat

Pops and Cima left in the middle of the night with a gooseneck cattle trailer and a small trailer for the four-wheeler. Their convoy carried a dozen cattle, as many sheep, two saddled horses, two Australian shepherds, and provisions. The animals and supplies made the departure a substantial evacuation, not a quick flight on foot; the size of the party also made concealment difficult.

Pops expected resistance on the road and fought through three barricaded ambushes during the fifteen miles to the creek road. Further on, in the cedar hills, he shot three attackers. The escape came at a cost: one horse and two sheep were shot inside the trailer. Their losses also made it harder to disguise the next day’s movement as an ordinary drive taking cows to their summer lease in early May.

The Journey into the Canyon

After the fighting, the party split its work according to skill. Pops rode horseback, while Cima drove the ATV and pulled a small trailer carrying gear and supplies. She would have preferred to ride, but she was never comfortable on four-wheelers. Pops was skilled at hazing and herding livestock from the saddle, and the dogs were accustomed to taking his orders there. The animals’ movement depended on his established command of them, while Cima carried the equipment by ATV.

Together they traveled twelve miles into the canyon. The distance and the carefully divided tasks show how the escape required more than getting away from the ranch: the pair had to move a mixed group of livestock, dogs, and supplies through difficult country while maintaining control of the convoy.

Concealing Their Route

The next morning, Pops and Cima walked back downstream. With dynamite, Pops blew up the ford—the only crossing over the creek—so that it became impassable except on foot or horseback, and then only when the water was low. The measure did not make passage absolutely impossible, but it sharply restricted how and when anyone could follow.

They also swept their tracks and thoroughly obliterated them for two miles before leaving the rough road for the creek trail into the canyon. The work took all day. Two days later, heavy rain further obscured the traces they had tried to erase. The escape thus ended not at arrival but with deliberate efforts to protect the new refuge: the destroyed crossing and cleared tracks turned the landscape itself into part of their defense.