Ranchers in Colorado's scenic mountain valleys near the Continental Divide are, in a sense, among the first in the region affected by drought, being nearest to the melting mountain snowpack.

They hardly need Gutsch to tell them how parched conditions are. They remember past droughts — bad ones in 2002, 1981, 1977 — and wonder how it bodes for their operations.

“I’ve never seen it so warm so early and no snow all winter long,” said Philip Anderson, a retired teacher who also has ranched most of his life in Colorado's North Park valley.

The heaviest snows in the high Rockies fall in late winter and early spring. Anderson’s place is at about 8,100 feet (2,500 meters) in elevation where a foot (30 centimeters) or more of snow often lingers on his pastures until springtime, helping to green up grass and refill stock ponds.

But without snow on the ground lately, his cows are grazing his grass before it can grow high and several ponds are dry. The ditch that would usually move water from the nearby Illinois River to his property is also dry — tapped already by neighbors with more senior water rights.

“A lot of the people which are closer to the mountains have to let the water go by and let those folks with the senior water rights have it,” Anderson said.

Anderson last had to haul water in his truck from a nearby wildlife refuge in 2002. That same year, he had to sell off his herd.

North Park — about 100 miles (161 kilometers) from the South Park valley that inspired the cartoon TV show — is a headwaters of the eastward-flowing Platte River system. Thirty-five miles (56 kilometers) west of Anderson's place, across the Continental Divide, is the Stanko Ranch on the Yampa River.

Jo Stanko dreads low flows because they allow her cattle to wade across the river. Then they need to be rounded up and brought back home.

This year, Stanko has been watering her parched meadow earlier than ever in 50 years of ranching. She plans to cut hay before June and may buy hay soon to feed her 70 cows after that.

“Hay's always a good investment, you know, because it might be really expensive,” she said.

An old saying in the West is that whiskey's for drinking and water's for fighting over. It especially applies when water becomes scarce amid a decades-long drought driven in part by human-caused climate change.

Meanwhile, the river's Upper Basin states of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming remain at an impasse in negotiations with the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada to create new rules for managing the water during shortages.

Like the water itself, time is running short — the current rules expire in September.

A recent federal plan would conserve river water “completely on Arizona's back,” Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs told a U.S. Chamber of Commerce meeting in March.

Upper Basin states say their cities, farmers and ranchers already use far less water than they are entitled to under the existing agreements. That's because they honor senior water rights — some of which date to the 1880s — before newer rights during droughts, Becky Mitchell, the Colorado River negotiator for Colorado, recently told other Upper Basin representatives.

“When there is less, we use less. This is not voluntary and no one gets paid as a result,” Mitchell said.

After missing multiple deadlines set by federal officials in recent months to reach agreement, the two sides are hiring lawyers in case the dispute goes to court.

After the driest and warmest winter on record, Salt Lake City announced a 10% daily cut in water use.

Reductions will be voluntary for residents, but the biggest nonresidential water users will have to consume no more than 200,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) per day.

On the other side of the Rockies, Denver Water is limiting lawn-watering and making other cuts in hopes of a 20% savings.

Precipitation west of the Continental Divide that's sent through tunnels to the eastern side provides about half of the city's water.

“We’re 7 to 8 feet (2 to 2.4 meters) of snow short of where we need to be,” Nathan Elder, water supply manager for Denver Water, said in a statement. “It would take a tremendous amount of snow to recover at this point, so it’s time to turn our attention to preserving what we have.”

Vast areas of California, Oregon and Nevada also are much drier than normal.

In California, where Sierra Nevada snowpack provides one-third of the state's water, a reading in the mountains near Lake Tahoe stood at just 18% of average for the second-lowest April 1 mark on record.

On the same day Denver approved the water restrictions, the city set a new high temperature record for March: 87 degrees (30 Celsius).

The previous record of 85 degrees (29 Celsius) was set just a week earlier.

Hot, dry weather is a recipe for wildfires. While other parts of the U.S., including the South and Southwest, face higher fire risk this spring, forecasters expect the threat in the Rockies to rise as above-average temperatures and below-normal precipitation persist into summer.

This week, the region is getting a reprieve and snow is back in the forecast by the end of the week in North Park. But Anderson said he needs a lot more — half an inch (1 centimeter) of rain every other day for several days — to get out of the drought.

Until then, he suggested that North Park water users work together to ensure everybody has enough.

"It’s pretty serious,” Anderson said. “If we just talk and communicate together and cooperate, we might be able to make it through this. But we’ll see.”

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Gruver reported from Fort Collins, Colorado. Christopher Weber in Los Angeles and Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, California, contributed.

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