Dark Canyon Wilderness, Manti La Sal National Forest, UT

Dates

Sep 23rd - Sep 29th 2012

Service Project

Archeological survey to document ancient ruins & artifacts

Free Days

Exploring ruins, photography

Accommodations

Backpack camping

Trip Rating

Strenuous : 1 mile backpack, long day hiking. Pack animal support,

Leaders

Norm Feaster
Lee Cooper

Equipment

The Dark Canyon Wilderness is a spectacular canyon wilderness in southeastern Utah that was the ancestral home of puebloan peoples for 5,000 years. Dark Canyon is rich in biological, geological, archaeological, and historical significance, and is also one of the most colorful canyon systems on the Colorado Plateau. Dark Canyon begins on Elk Ridge at an elevation of 8,800 feet then cuts through Cedar Mesa sandstone formations dramatically framed amidst a forest of ponderosa pine on its 5,000-foot descent to the upper reaches of Lake Powell. It is remote, harsh, and spectacularly beautiful. At various times residents of the canyon hunted on the mesa tops, grew maize, squash and beans on canyon terraces, gathered pinyon nuts on the plateaus, and hunted turkey and deer in the high ponderosa pine forests. They built cliff-dwellings and grain storage warehouses, made pottery in a variety of styles, and fashioned tools from the mineral resources of the canyon - accomplishments we moderns would be challenged to match.

Our ongoing service project with Manti-La Sal National Forest archeologists is to survey remote parts of the Dark Canyon system, including major side canyons, for artifacts and ancestral sites. We will split into small teams, each led by an archeologist, and slowly walk the canyon looking for stone tools and flakes, projectile points, pot sherds and the remains of ancient structures. This is off-trail, bushwacking through fairly dense pinyon-juniper forest. Participants should be comfortable in these situations, and feel confident in their orienteering skills. This year we'll survey Hammond Canyon, a lesser-visited and adjacent inventoried roadless canyon. Forest Service staff will provide us with training on how stone tools and artifacts were made, the different styles of tools and pottery used, and how to find artifacts and document the sites where they are found. The training includes a demonstration of the art of "flint knapping" - the fabrication of tools and projectile points from stone - that will give you insight into the things to look for and the types of tools that can be made from stone.

Although it may seem like looking for a needle in a haystack, the area is rich with artifacts. You will develop a "feel" for where artifacts are likely to be found and how to recognize them. Nobody knows what we will find, but volunteers have found dozens of artifacts including pot sherds, projectile points and stone tools, as well as previously undocumented cliff dwellings. We'll backpack a short distance, roughly one mile, into Hammond Canyon, utilizing pack animal support to carry group gear and food. On our free day we will explore the canyon and hike to ruins, and on the way home there are other prehistoric sites and museums to visit.

Check out more photos of last year's Dark Canyon project in our gallery.