Unforgettable experiences
Our unique land and river trips bring families, friends, and student groups together, create shared memories, and strengthen appreciation for the place we call home.
Participation & learning
Our expert Naturalist Guides create engaging and relevant educational moments throughout the trip. Everyone in the expedition plays a role as we explore the desert environment, cultural history, and daily living through active, fun, and unique learning experiences.
Moderate pricing
We are committed to creating accessibility to the outdoors through moderate price structures, available scholarship funds, and comfort without the pampering.
Sustainable Visitation
CFI practices Leave No Trace ethics on all our trips. We engage with local experts, and believe in supporting the community of Moab by buying locally whenever possible.
Nonprofit organization
Lets face it, not everyone has access to these life-changing experiences. However, your trip fees go directly to providing students from all over the country the ability to experience what being outside has to offer.
Thank you for supporting outdoor education programs for schools and youth.
Mission
Canyonlands Field Institute provides quality outdoor education on the Colorado Plateau, to inspire care of wild places, and renew the human spirit.
Vision
A world where the people, wildlife, plants, and waters of the Colorado Plateau are healthy and vibrant.
Values
- Respect: For each other and for the natural world. We believe healthy and vibrant human and natural communities are interconnected. Respect for each other extends to the natural world and informs all of our programs, expeditions, and business practices.
- Reciprocity: Awareness of our interdependence. We affirm the need to give back to the local, regional, and national communities that sustain us, both human and ecological. CFI environmental service projects on the Colorado Plateau invite children and adults to make a difference.
- Experiential Education: Empowering children and adults. Hands-on, place-based learning about the biodiversity, climate, geography, archaeology, and indigenous cultures of the Colorado Plateau generates a spirit of inquiry, confidence to face challenges and competence to solve problems. Action and reflection create lasting change and encourage life-long learning.
- Teamwork: Creating Tomorrow’s Leaders. We believe that children who learn the values of teamwork and collaboration become caring leaders and empowered adults who are more able to effect positive change in the world.
- Reverence: For the beauty and mystery of the Colorado Plateau. We believe immersion in wild places is essential to the human spirit. Time spent on the Colorado Plateau brings awareness of forces greater than ourselves. The joy of exploring wild places restores balance and perspective.
- Responsibility: For each other and for the planet. When children and adults connect with nature and understand it as a home shared with other living beings, they are moved to act for a sustainable future.
- Diversity: Is essential to understanding. As with ecosystem health, humans thrive in diverse and vibrant communities. We honor and embrace all of the expressions of human diversity.
- Stewardship: Living lightly upon the land. We model successful and enduring stewardship of the land in our daily practice. Sustainable consumption and conservation are practiced within the organization and its infrastructure.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
View our 2021 Outdoor CEO Diversity Pledge for the In Solidarity Project.
DEI Code of Conduct
CFI commits to creating a culture of inclusivity in all that we do; we will establish programs and initiatives with an eye for diversity and inclusion. Our policies, practices and procedures will model diversity, equity and inclusion.
We will ensure this by:
- Hiring and supporting a diverse workforce, executive leadership and Board of Trustees. This may include:
- Broadcasting job opportunities and internships in our workforce and executive leadership to underrepresented populations.
- Committing to diversifying our Board of Trustees to better represent the communities we serve.
- Exploring diversity, equity, and inclusion education for our staff and the staff of other area non-profits.
- Seeking and providing role models who represent all backgrounds to support underrepresented voices and stories in the outdoors and remind them that they, too, can enjoy and be welcomed in the outdoors.
- Building workplaces that enable challenging conversations about DEI.
- Presenting representative marketing and advertising in our media. This may include:
- Showcasing stories that break the mold of the “typical” participant. Prospective customers feel invited into the outdoors when they see themselves in stories, articles, cover photos, and marketing. In helping evolve our marketing and social media we will invite new users into the outdoors, and support those who are already there.
- Communicating our policies and procedures related to diversity, equity and inclusion to our members and non-members alike.
- Creating programs and initiatives around diversity and inclusion. This may include:
- Identifying barriers to inclusion in participants and work to overcome these challenges (e.g. partnering with the Multicultural Center, engaging bilingual volunteers).
- Working with foundations that promote diversity and will allow us to recruit schools from neighborhoods of color and underrepresented communities to ease them into the wonders of spending time in the out-of-doors.
- Challenging ourselves to engage in uncomfortable conversations around race. This may include:
- Creating safe spaces and protections for those engaged in honest and open communication.
- Designating a CFI staff as our DEI officer.