'We saw lives change': Free Sierra Nevada cowboy camp is a detox from screens

May 30-With the ever-present arrival of tech billionaires and their otherworldly transactions to the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, it's sometimes hard to believe that, for much of the 20th century, the area was known for its cowboys.

Cowboy culture here includes once-famous spots like the Ponderosa attraction in Incline Village, a small Western theme park based on the long-running TV Western "Bonanza." The 2004 sale of the Ponderosa property to Incline-based billionaire David Duffield reflected a shift in the region from rural outpost to tech billionaire hideaway. The theme park is long shuttered, and the acquisitions and activities of the mega-wealthy continue to dominate the discourse for Lake Tahoe's East Shore, yet real-deal cowboys persist.

You just have to know where to look.

One of them is Nick Nalder. He co-owns Nalder Cattle Company, a ranching outfit in Nevada's Carson Valley just outside the Tahoe Basin, and participates in professional team roping competitions.

"Growing up, I was always loosely involved in the agriculture scene in the Carson Valley," Nalder told SFGATE. "All I wanted to do on the weekends was go brand calves, be a cattle herder for family friends. Any opportunity I got to do it, that's all I wanted to do."

Now, Nalder is passing down those cowboy skills to a new generation. He's part of an immersive camp that would showcase the region's ranching and cowboy heritage, along with the talents of those who still make their living working outdoors.

The idea hatched about two years ago, when Tahoe real estate agent Mike Dunn, who lives and raises his family in the Carson Valley, pitched a cowboy camp to a group of friends and neighbors, including Nalder.

At first, the notion was to have a camp for adults where they'd get a chance to connect a little better with nature and their surroundings and experience the work that folks do to keep the region's agricultural industries going.

Organizer Dunn referenced the "Yellowstone effect": a sudden explosion of rodeo and cowboy culture that has created a renaissance, of sorts, in interest in places like the Carson Valley and the way of life that has persisted there for more than a century and a half.

But then on a long road trip, Dunn happened upon a podcast about camps that take kids out of their screen-infused comfort zones, and a light bulb went off: The camp should be for kids, not adults.

"It just clicked," Dunn told SFGATE. "I wrote up an idea on a piece of paper, called up a couple guys."

As the group developed a mission to highlight the region, time and again the cowboy theme kept coming up: "The genesis came when a couple of us were first talking about just how awesome the Northern Nevada and cowboy way of life is and the fact that the rodeo is booming," he said. "It's a discussion from a regional point of view. Having pride in where we're from, and how do we come up with a way where we create a day on the ranch and introduce it to people who aren't necessarily from here."

The idea took hold right away, and last summer, thanks to a handful of volunteers and their donations of time and resources - including the use of Northern Nevada's fabled Jacks Valley Ranch, which used to be owned by casino pioneer John Ascuaga - the camp was born.

With a title sponsor on board in Campagni Auto Group, which owns Capital Ford and Carson City Toyota, plus a local ranch owner donating the use of her historic property, Dunn said the pieces started to fall into place to make the vision for the camp a reality.

Last summer, Dunn and his crew of volunteers hosted a three-day pilot camp, named the Nevada Cowboy Experience, for organizers and their children to make sure they had a proof of concept.

The big question, Dunn said, was whether kids would respond to being outside and learning: lessons in roping, archery, ranching, cooking, riding - and even firefighting - that make this part of the country tick.

Dunn said the results were seen immediately, as the kids were introduced to the camp with the four words they probably never want to hear: "We take their devices," Dunn said.

"Each day, they have a 10-minute window to call their parents," he continued, explaining that the fast evolution away from screens surprised even him and the other volunteers. "Day one, halfway through the day, almost every kid asked for their phone. Day two, about 40% asked for their phones at all. By day three, no one asked for their phone. When we went to close the camp, the entire camp asked to stay another day. We saw lives change in front of us in only three days."

Stephanie Griffith is the mother of a boy who attended last year's three-day pilot camp. She said the changes she saw in her son just after a couple days were profound - and lasting. "He wore his cowboy hat for three months and a long sleeve shirt with his cowboy experience shirt underneath that," Griffith told SFGATE. "It made a huge impact for him."

With the pilot program deemed a success, the idea for the camp has morphed into a weeklong, hands-on affair for kids and teens to immerse themselves in a rough-and-tumble, old-meets-new West environment that gives them an idea of how modern ranchers and foresters work and make a living today.

And perhaps the best part: It's free for all participants.

All of the nonprofit camp's services and materials are donated. Nobody on the board makes one penny off the effort, Dunn said.

The inaugural Nevada Cowboy Experience is set for the last week of July at the 156-acre P&K Ranch in the Carson Valley about 35 miles from Incline Village. Twenty-four campers aged 11-24 are slated to participate, with spots still available.

Potential campers can go online with their parents and apply until June 5. Dunn said they're looking for a broad array of campers and that those who've never cowboyed before, or don't even know anything about the region, are very much encouraged to apply. "It's not intended to be a camp for a bunch of kids who live in Gardnerville," Dunn explained, emphasizing that the camp seeks to host kids from diverse regions and backgrounds. "We [will] have campers from Vegas, Montana, Colorado, California - the cities, the valleys."

The camp also aims to ensure "that a percentage of the participants are selected because of their challenging lifestyle, whether due to a difficult living environment or a financial situation," a news release announcing the upcoming summer session said.

"We have so much of, 'I can't get my kids off his device,'" Dunn said of the applications they receive. "Others have dreams of being a cowboy. We have a committee where we review every single application. It will be a broad range and diverse group."

Dunn, who grew up in Southern California, knows a thing or two about how precious a place Northern Nevada is, as well as how it can feel difficult to approach, especially at first. He readily admits that his day job - selling multimillion-dollar properties in Lake Tahoe - clearly signals to him that something is, in fact, fast slipping away here.

Traditions that he knew even from the time he first came up to work a season at Heavenly 33 years ago are now tougher to find. "We have an incredible region," he said. "Some amazing areas in and around Reno and even east of us."

Yet, ever since that light bulb moment when the idea of the camp first came up, he has been going full speed in an attempt to turn this project into something tangible and expose the region to many in their formative years. "Professional cowboys, professional rodeo athletes, people that facilitate and run the camp, they're all the real deal," Dunn explained. "That's what makes us special."

This summer, Dunn's dream of giving something back is about to be as real as dirt on a dusty road: "We have this beautiful outdoors and this wonderful agricultural and ranching heritage of Nevada, and some of the lessons that come with it," he said.

As a rancher, roper and camp volunteer, Nalder said he realized that not every kid has the same opportunities growing up as he once did. To have a venue to begin to pass on these skills and jobs is critical to the future of keeping that way of life intact, he said.

In the end, Nalder said, even a weeklong exposure for kids is igniting the imaginations of the next generation while showing them there's something far beyond what they see in a little black handheld box.

"And another thing," he concluded. "Kinda the way the world is going, I think it's important for kids to be able to see different things and experience different things."

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