Grand Gulch-Cedar Mesa Plateau, UT

Dates

Sep 16th - Sep 22nd 2012

Service Project

Trail maintenance

Free Days

Day hikes to explore ancient ruins & rock art, photography

Accommodations

Backpack camping

Trip Rating

Strenuous : 3-6 mile backpack, digging, bending, brushing, tread work.

Leaders

Cheryl Walczak
Norm Feaster

Equipment

Located in southeastern Utah's San Juan county and managed the by the Monticello Office of the BLM, the Grand Gulch-Cedar Mesa Plateau area is a spectacular wilderness of nearly 800,000 acres containing ancient ruins and 2,000 years of history. The ancestral puebloan (Anasazi) civilization flourished in its massive red sandstone walls, hunting on the mesa tops and growing maize and beans on canyon terraces. Ancient dwellings, pottery, tools and rock art are everywhere - creating a true outdoor museum.

Our service project is an ongoing partnership with BLM to address its most pressing on-the-ground needs on the mesa top and in the canyons. The exact location of the project has yet to be determined, but will likely be general trail maintenance, and possibly illegal campsite removal or illegal road obliteration. Summer storms and water availability tend to dictate our exact project and location and our work plan frequently changes due to conditions in the canyons, so participants are asked to remain flexible. These deep desert canyon bottoms harbor seasonal water and potholes that provide nourishment for vegetation to quickly overgrow trails making them difficult to follow. The trail work entails cutting back overgrown brush, water bar and check dam installation and cleanout, tread repair and marking with cairns as appropriate. This is vigorous and dirty work and requires participants be in good physical condition. The project includes a medium distance backpack (likely 3-6 miles) to establish a base camp for the week from which we'll make daily forays further into the canyons.

In addition to working and hiking in the heart of this wonderful world of slickrock canyons and pinion-juniper forest, we will have a free day to explore one of the richest concentrations of prehistoric artifacts in North America. We're in the canyon at the right time of year, when it's not too hot, and at the start of fall color. This is a truly unique place -- where archaeology and wilderness are intimately intertwined.

Check out more photos from last year's Grand Gulch-Cedar Mesa project in our gallery.