Escape the daily grind at C Lazy U Ranch

With the fourth quarter and winter well underway, it’s a great time of year for holiday parties, annual strategic planning and corporate retreats. Far away from the stresses of life and business, C Lazy U Ranch might just be the perfect getaway for the whole company — not to mention that this time of year there are a slew of winter activities.

“The ranch really lends well to accomplishing a multitude of tasks when a group comes on property,” says Brady Johnson, director of sales and marketing at C Lazy U Ranch. “Just the experience of being out of your comfort zone, out of your office, engaging with your peers and your co workers in a different environment, it just brings everyone closer together. When you get back into the office, it allows everybody just to work better.”

The ranch is located just north of the town of Granby and has been operated for 100 years by six different families. In the winter, the 8,500 acres are home to 35 guest cabins, an indoor 20,000-square foot arena, a tubing hill, a pond that freezes over for ice skating and hockey and enough acreage for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, horseback riding fat tire biking, snowmobiling, winter trap shooting, sleigh rides and more. 

The Latigo meeting room. 

Companies can rent out the entire property for a team-building weekend, complete with unique meeting spaces and activities. The ranch has five spaces for meetings including a new meeting room, which it calls the Latigo meeting room, that fits groups of 10 to 63 people. “It has beautiful views, you can see out into the meadow, you can see the horses and the snow, and the mountains and the peaks and the vista,” Johnson says. “You can focus on your meeting, but you're looking out the window and looking at the true beauty of Colorado versus being stuck in a basement in your traditional conference center.”

For corporate events, the ranch can arrange what Johnson equates to “ the amazing race,” where companies can break into smaller teams and compete across the variety of activities.

Between the team-building activities and the meeting space, C Lazy U Ranch “can transform and change the culture within the company and help enhance or provide a better experience for them moving forward,” Johnson says, adding that engagement and bonding are the top two things the ranch can instigate when a company arrives on property. 

“If you're trying to do something — change the culture, change the path of the company or get people on board with a new direction — that paradigm shift within the company is going to be a lot more successful when they're having fun,” Johnson says. By having the entire team on a single property, away from the device distractions of the office, “It’s forced interaction — you get to know your co-worker, your cube mate, someone you may have never even really known in the office; and that's just one of the biggest benefits.”

In recent years, the ranch has seen a number of young startups as well as established companies use the ranch’s space for meetings and events. One such company was the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA), which hosted an event at the ranch for its professional development program for those seeking leadership roles in the outdoor industry, the Skip Yowell Future Leadership Academy Participants (FLA). 

“Our time at the ranch brought together the 35 academy participants, representing 35 companies, 12 states and 2 countries for the first time to kick-off the program, bond with each other and take part in team-building activities,” says Kristen Freany, emerging leaders manager and FLA program manager at the OIA. “Staying at the ranch set a great tone for the program. C Lazy U Ranch helped us create a positive, connected and inclusive culture for our program.”

According to Freany, the meeting spaces were “cozy yet well-equipped,” the family-style meals helped create natural bonding experiences for the group and the variety of activities offered something for everyone.