Gallatin Valley Land Trust completed a conservation easement on the 437-acre Nickelson Family Ranch in March 2026, made possible by the generosity of Atira Conservation and other philanthropic partners.

Located in Montana’s Paradise Valley north of Yellowstone National Park, the Nickelson Ranch is a working property that will remain under private ownership, with GVLT holding a permanent conservation easement that limits subdivision while allowing continued agricultural use. The property was appraised at $2.3 million in 2023 and recently reappraised at $3.5 million, increasing the landowner’s donated contribution to an extraordinary $2.9 million and reflecting the family’s deep commitment to conservation.

Approximately 71% of the ranch is native rangeland and 26% is irrigated hay ground on prime soils. The land is leased to a neighboring producer, supporting local agriculture and maintaining a productive working landscape. Situated within the Mill Creek drainage, the ranch provides critical winter range and a migratory corridor for elk, deer and other wildlife, connecting the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness to the Upper Yellowstone River.

As development pressure increases in Park County, protecting large, intact ranches like this is essential to preventing fragmentation. This new conservation easement is an important area for elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer and other migratory wildlife that rely on the property as part of a broader movement corridor between the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness and the Upper Yellowstone River. The Nickelson Ranch contributes to a growing block of more than 5,000 acres of conserved and prospective lands in the Mill Creek drainage and builds on GVLT’s Northern Yellowstone Open Lands Initiative, which has protected approximately 12,000 acres in Paradise Valley over the past two years. This partnership secures a large, intact and undeveloped ranch that provides critical winter range and migration connectivity, while sustaining agricultural use, supporting generational working lands and preventing fragmentation in a rapidly developing landscape.

• Total Transaction Cost: $
• Atira Conservation Support: $