I grew up hiking and exploring in the mountains and deserts of Oregon and Idaho. After working several years as a seasonal CRM Archaeologist for the US Forest Service, I moved south to Salt Lake City, UT in 1994 and began working as a staff archaeologist for a private environmental consulting firm. I spent the next four years working in SE Utah and the Great Basin. I often found myself returning to the project areas on my days off to hike, camp, and explore on my own, searching for the traces of everyday life left behind by the ancient peoples that lived there centuries ago.
From there, I migrated to Boulder, CO and continued to return to the Southwest to explore and learn. I took a summer off of my normal routine, and spent a season working for the BLM, at the Kane Gulch ranger station on Cedar Mesa, UT. This experience did even more to fuel my passion for the desert southwest and to reinforce in me the need to see this fragile environment – and the archaeological treasures therein – preserved and protected.
Today, I find myself in New Mexico, closer to the desert areas that I love, with a lifetime’s worth of new places to explore. From the Rio Grande to Chaco Canyon, to the alpine forests of the Pecos Wilderness, there is plenty to keep me engaged here.
We are the stewards of an amazing collection of natural and cultural wonders – canyons, cliff dwellings, ancient forests, wild rivers. These places give us a place to contemplate, heal, recharge. They amaze, thrill, humble and inspire us. They are ours to explore, and care for. For me, they are something to live for.
“Take only pictures, leave only footprints.”