Discover Cedar Mesa and Bears Ears in this unique opportunity to learn from experts!
Learn about the Cedar Mesa and Bears Ears National Monument area and its fascinating history that spans thousands of years. In visiting several well-known sites with an insider’s view, we learn recent research findings and contextual relationships that tie the past to the present. Our seminar will cover Paleolithic through historic occupations .We see cultural features in the Bluff region such as great houses, great kivas, roads, earthen berms, and shrines. In typical CFI style, we also learn about geology, plants, wildlife, and current issues, and well as enjoy stunning autumn colors.
The seminar begins at 2:00 pm on the first day with a private “backroom” tour of Edge of the Cedars Museum with the Curator. (There is an optional early start at noon from the CFI office in Moab, travel with or caravan with the CFI guides.) After the Museum, the group travels to settle in at Recapture Lodge in Bluff, Utah for the next three nights as our base. The Lodge is a cozy locally owned motel with each room having an entrance door to the outdoors.
We take daily vehicle tours and short hikes up to three miles round trip, exploring sites, rock art, and geological features. Locations will include familiar and lesser-known historical and archaeological sites; exact locations are determined by faculty and our BLM permit; we will utilize several new sites not included in previous CFI seminars and routes may vary depending on conditions and group interest.
Hiking will be on trails as well as up washes, across brush, and sandstone. Physical activity will be moderately challenging, mostly short walks from vehicles up to 2 miles round trip in sandy washes, up cut banks and across sandstone benches. On a longer hike, participants may wish to go part way and return early with a CFI guide to the vehicles and a comfy lawn chair with our trip library at hand.
The seminar ends back at the Lodge mid-afternoon of the last day. Participants depart from here or return to CFI headquarters in Moab with our guides arriving by 6:00 p.m.
Trip fee includes motel lodging with private access from outside and meals beginning with breakfast on day one through lunch the last day, plus permit fees, and transportation during the program. A part of your fee helps to underwrite our educational school programs.
To learn more about the greater Bears Ears National Monument area, visit Friends of Cedar Mesa, CedarMesaFriends.org; visit their newly opened Bears Ears Education Center, 567 W. Main St., Bluff, UT 84512. Also check out the Heritage Voices podcasts: https://www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com/heritagevoices
Guest Experts
Greg Nunn is a Master Flint Knapper and widely recognized for his understanding of lithic tools and Early and Late Paleo lifeways. Greg spent his youth with his family living on a working cattle ranch located on Wilson Mesa, east of Moab. Greg has participated in archaeological excavations, surveys, lithic analysis and is a consultant in Early and Late Paeleo lithics and environments in North America and abroad. He has spent time in Denmark and Sweden researching the Late Neolithic Danish Dagger phenomenon that occurred about 4,300 years ago and ended in the Early Bronze age. Greg is also recognized as a specialist in North American Clivis lithic tehnology and traditions of the S.W. United States.
Lyle J. Balenquah, Hopi, is a member of the Greasewood clan from the Village of Bacavi on Third Mesa, Arizona. He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in Anthropology from the North Arizona University. He has worked as a professional archaeologist, ethnographer, author and educator for over twenty years. He has consulted and led educational seminars for Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, Grand Canyon Field Institute, Archaeology Southwest and Friends of Cedar Mesa. He served as the Co Director of the “Native Voices on the Colorado River Program and currently co-hosts the podcast, Heritage Voices.
” The entire experience was mind, heart and soul opening. It was a terrific group of people and group cohesion isnt always easy but I felt we really gelled as a group. I learned so much and, looking so far back into humanity, I fell a little less anxious about our fate as humans – not that I won’t continue on with all my own engagements to make the world a better, safer and life sustaining place! Thank you again, you do great work.” – Anne, Berkeley, CA
Activity Level
Moderate to Active
Up to two miles round trip on uneven trails – with occasional scrambling – with up to 300 feet of elevation gain per day.
