About Canyon Country Field Notes

Canyon Country Field Notes writes about the Cedar Mesa and Bears Ears country of southeast Utah and the canyons of the Four Corners around it. It covers three things: the archaeology and rock art of the region, the public lands and the decisions made about them, and the practical business of visiting with care, from permits and dirt roads to the conduct cultural sites ask for. Its readers are people planning a trip or following the news, not specialists, and it has no connection to any agency, tribe, organization or business.

Rules the writing keeps

Every piece is dated and reports the situation on that date. Fees, rules, road conditions and the monument’s boundary keep moving, so any figure a trip depends on is worth confirming with the agency that sets it before leaving home.

Claims about archaeology, land management and the law are checked against primary sources: the Bureau of Land Management, Recreation.gov, Utah state agencies, museums and universities, tribal governments and the text of the statutes. Political decisions are reported with their dates and with the reasons each side gave. The pieces carry no author’s name.

One rule has no exceptions. No page gives the location of an archaeological site or rock art panel, or directions to one, and no photograph here shows one. Many of these places are protected by keeping them quiet, and the people descended from those who lived in them have asked for exactly that.

There is no advertising and no tracking of any kind; the privacy page sets out the one thing kept, a server log erased after two weeks. The contact page explains how to point out an error.

Who looks after the canyon country

These are the public bodies that manage the land and its history, and the right places for questions this publication cannot answer:

• The Bureau of Land Management’s Monticello Field Office manages most of the area, issues the Cedar Mesa passes and permits, and runs the seasonal Kane Gulch Ranger Station. Its Bears Ears pages carry current rules and notices.
• The Forest Service’s Manti-La Sal National Forest manages Elk Ridge and the high country around the Bears Ears buttes.
• The Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum in Blanding holds and exhibits archaeological collections from the region.
• The Hopi Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Ute Indian Tribe each keep cultural preservation offices that speak for their own histories.
• Damage to a site, or looting in progress, is reported to the Bureau of Land Management or to local law enforcement, never confronted.