Alpine, home to Sul Ross State University is near Big Bend National Park and the towns of Marathon, Fort Davis and Lajitas. Alpine is also a short drive from Marfa, Texas renowned both for the mysterious Marfa Lights and Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation. The area’s topography was created 35 million years ago when the Paisano Volcano erupted with a force 1000 times greater than that of Mount St. Helens. This created mountains with elevations ranging from 4000 feet base to peaks in excess of 8000 feet in elevation. The mountains force westerly winds to rise into the cooler atmosphere allowing the moisture to condensate producing an area of higher rainfall, truly unique in Texas.

CF Ranch has expanded the boundaries of a traditional ranching operation by striving to find and develop innovative profits centers. These emerging opportunities are part of the CF Ranch management style and as they are busy maintaining their existing portfolio of businesses they are focusing additional efforts into new and emerging niche markets such as Hunting (Elk, Mule Deer, Aoudad (Barbary Sheep), Antelope), Print work (Maxim Magazine, Marlboro, Winston) Film and Television Production (Dead Man’s Walk, Grand Champion, Streets of Laredo), Desert Plants (Cactus, Yucca, Ocotillo), and a real estate development, Sierra La Rana.