Leave What You Find

In the latest issue of High Country News is an article titled, "Pillaging the Past." It outlines how "90% of archaeological sites in the Southwest have been vandalized," and that "a land once rich with ancestry has been scraped entirely clean."

The Southwest is a beautiful landscape that has a wealth of opportunities to discover the rich history of the past. The time I have been lucky to spend in the Grand Gulch made me feel as if I was walking through a living history museum. To discover kiva's, pottery shards, arrowheads, and the pictographs of the Anasazi people was an amazing experience and one that I want many people to have the opportunity to discover. Leave No Trace outlines in its fourth principle to Leave What You Find. This includes leaving artifacts, fossils and historic structures intact. Please be considerate of other visitors when you visit these sacred heritage sites so that they continue to exist.