Canyons and Uplands of Cedar Mesa

Leader: Don Keller and Ann Walka
Dates: September 10–15, 2010 (6 days / 5 nights)
Cost: $1060 Members / $1120 Nonmembers
Difficulty: Moderate

Cost includes transportation, all meals, and group gear.

Cedar Mesa stands as an island oasis above the San Juan River, Comb Ridge, and the Glen Canyon country of southeast Utah. Spring fed riparian habitats in canyons like Grand Gulch, Bullet, Fish and Owl, and Slickhorn are cut deeply into the mesa’s high mosaic of pinyon-juniper woodland and sagebrush parks. Deep aeolian and alluvial soils attracted pioneer Ancestral Pueblo farmers here over two thousand years ago, and times of favorable climate and circumstance drew them back to the mesa throughout the long millennium that followed. A wide variety of their living sites remain in relatively undisturbed solitude across the wide mesa and in the deep sandstone canyons, a rich setting for exploring the substance and patterns of nature and prehistoric life in the high desert. We will drive from a central basecamp to various parts of the mesa and day hike, four to eight miles round trip, to mesa top sites, prehistoric cliff dwellings, and natural oases deep in the splendid canyons. Our discoveries will invite contemplation and conversation, and we will have time around our evening campfires to discuss what we have seen in this once familiar, now silent place .

Pre-Trip Information Packet (PDF Downloads)

» Medical/Waiver [66 KB]

Don Keller and Dave Wilson Don Keller strives to help participants understand the landscapes, the resources they contain, and how these resources have been used over time to create human settlement... Read more…

A writer, naturalist, and stubborn generalist, Ann Weiler Walka is intrigued by a landscape’s weave of geologic processes, natural histories, ecological relationships— the patterns and surprises that make up the world. Read more…

“The trip is special because of the archaeology and geology we get from Don and Ann’s knowledge of flora, fauna, and readings from relevant literature.” —M.S.

“Terrific group leaders with real knowledge of the area and social histories.”—S.V.

“It’s always such a pleasure to have Ann and Don leading us!! Ann sharing her expertise as a naturalist and a poet and Don sharing his archeology expertise and knowledge of the area.”—B.J.