Anyone hiking the Colorado canyons with regularity will stumble across Paleolithic rock art or old cowboy and mining camps. The rock of the Four Corners area is the perfect canvas for rock art, and canyons protected from the weather have the best chance of preserving the detritus of past generations.

One Grand Junction club is passionate about not only viewing these tangible signs of past inhabitants, but also preserving them for future generations to enjoy. The Grand Junction chapter of the Colorado Archeological Society (CAS-GJ) is a place for those who love the past, the outdoors and adventure in equal measure.

“Someone gets excited about a place and we plan a field trip there,” said the club’s founder, Doug Van Etten. “There was a recent trip to the Palisade Rim, just above the town of Palisade. The trail is a four-mile loop, with rock art at about the two-mile point. Ten people went on that hike.”

Another group just went to Rabbit Valley.

“We hiked all the way to the river,” Van Etten said.

Alan Green, a 25-year veteran with the Division of Wildlife Resources in Utah who just moved to Grand Junction, led a larger trip to Cedar Mesa in Blanding, Utah.

“I was involved with the archeological society there, but this one is a lot more fun,” Green said. “There’s so much going on.”

With this vibrant and active group, field trips abound.

“This is a great way to get involved,” Arlene Connelly said. “There are usually three or four things to do in a week, depending on the hiking conditions. Spring and fall are ideal times to go. And there are speakers at the monthly meetings, like instructional talks or Native Americans who do storytelling.”

Janice Shepherd is a volunteer storyteller with the BLM, which allows her to draw on her knowledge of local history and pass it along to others in a creative outlet. With her background in mapping, computer science and GPS, she shares her knowledge freely with the group, but everyone’s contributions make it an even richer experience.

“Everyone brings their own expertise,” Shepherd said. “Some are experts at rocks and point out what tools were used on them at a mine site. Others are interested in plants and can show which ones were used for food or medicine.”

3 aspects to studying local history

Archeology looks at the signs left behind. Signs of past cultures can be either ancient, like the Anasazi, or more recent, like trappers and miners in the 1800s.

Anthropology is the study of peoples within their society. What did these people eat? How did they live? How did their society work?

Paleontology is the study of the remains of extinct life. Think dinosaur bones and fossilized plants.

There is considerable overlap in these three areas and due to Western Colorado’s landscape and its surrounding environment, the CAS-GJ has access to all.

Member John Green is a trained site steward.

“I’ve lived in western Colorado all my life,” he said. “Ninety percent of all rock art is here in the Four Corners area. There’s 12,000 years of history out there.”

John Schultz added, “You can’t help but run into it. But when people were settling the West, they weren’t taught to respect it.”

Fortunately, organizations like the Bureau of Land Management help protect this art. Site stewards work closely with the BLM to make sure known sites are not being damaged or looted by visitors, although some deterioration is inevitable due to erosion, weather and rock wall splay.

“You don’t need to attend a class go to on a field trip,” Van Etten clarified, “but you do need to join the club to be able to go,” because club members must sign a code of ethics agreement, assenting not to disclose the locations of these fragile sites.

The newest, growing chapter in the state

There has been a Colorado Archaeological Society for over 80 years with local chapters across Colorado, but nothing in Grand Junction for more than 15 years.

“There are 11 chapters statewide, but the closest one was in Montrose until Doug [Van Etten] started this one a year and a half ago,” said current CAS-GJ President Ike Rakiecki.

In the spring of 2015, Van Etten invited a few people to a meeting to gauge interest in starting a chapter here in Grand Junction. Word spread quickly.

“Over 100 people showed up to the first meeting,” Rakiecki said. “We had to move to a bigger room. There was this immediate energy—this excitement. We elected an interim board that June and already this year we were tapped to host the annual state-wide conference of the Colorado Archeological Society.”

Photos by Katherine Lopez