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Enjoy a weekend of discovery among the artifacts left behind a thousand years ago by a once prominent Fremont population. Range Creek is hidden in the Book Cliffs of Eastern Utah and contains some of the best preserved Native American sites in the Southwest. Recently featured in National Geographic Magazine, this amazing valley and piece of pre-history was until recently privately owned and closed to the public. The Utah Division of Wildlife and BLM now carefully limit and manage access.
Waldo Wilcox, former owner and donor of Range Creek to The Trust for Public Lands.
CFI Naturalists and DWR Representatives will help narrate the story of this unique landscape, the people who lived here, how they lived, and why they eventually left.
The trip includes a visit to the ranch house and stories about the cowboy who previously owned the land, and knows it almost as well as the Fremont Indians that preceded him.
Learn more about Range Creek at:
www.wildlife.utah.gov/range_creek/or see Smithsonian Magazine, March 2006, or National Geographic, August, 2006 or National Geographic Adventure, March, 2007.
If traveling from the east, we encourage participants to visit The College of Eastern Utah Prehistoric Museum in Price on your own the day before (open 7 days a week 9 am to 6 PM, entrance fee) excellent displays on Fremont culture including the famous Pillings figurines and other artifacts collected from regional sites in early days.
For more information on the Museum:
John Wesley Powell Museum,
Green River, UT (435) 564-3427
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Weekend Overnight Camp Tour
Our weekend overnight tour allows plenty of time to explore and enjoy the canyon. We meet in Green River, meeting at John Wesley Powell Museum at 9:00 a.m. Park your vehicle here and travel on with CFI Naturalist-Guides to enter the Bookcliffs at Horse Canyon. We follow a steep rough road for about an hour, stop at a fabulous overlook while our guides provide a geological overview. We reach locked gate protecting the canyon and meet our Division of Wildlife escort to tour the lower part of the canyon including the old homestead, now research headquarters at Wilcox Ranch. After setting up a comfortable camp in a meadow by the gate and under lovely Ponderosa Pine trees, we explore by foot rock art sites nearby and learn more about Fremont Cultures, preservation issues and area history.
The next day, after breakfast, we see another section of the canyon with DWR and do more hiking to sites. We depart Range Creek early afternoon and arrive back at Green River about 4:00 p.m.. Delicious healthy meals included from dinner through lunch the next day. Participants should be able to hike 4 miles round trip on mostly level surfaces, with some optional scrambling to get closer to sites. We use binoculars often to view more remote sites. Please call if you have questions about nature of trip; bring your own tent and sleeping bag or rentals are available from CFI. Camp chairs provided.
Small group, 5 min-8 maximum participants.
Special Range Creek/ Tavaputs Ranch Trip - Lodge Stay and Scenic Flight- with CFI's Rebecca Martin, Naturalist/Cultural Anthropologist and guests.
Start/end Moab airport. Full day vehicle tour with short hikes in Range Creek; then we are met by Jeanie WIlcox (niece of Waldo Wilcox who had Range Creek) and Butch Jensen family of Tavaputs Ranch and transported up their private road from the North Gate in Range Creek to the cool temperatures, aspen forests and fabulous overlook views. We stay two nights in comfortable guest cabins, enjoy delicious, healthy ranch meals, visit historic sites on the Plateau that tie to early days in Range Creek and nearby Desolation Canyon.
Wildflower walks, short horseback ride, wildlife viewing, fascinating presentations on archeology, geology and history, time to read and relax.
Fabulous return the last day by SCENIC FLIGHT over Green River Wilderness canyons below.
Small group 6 minimum 8 maximum
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Pristine Fremont Archeological Site
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