Porcupine Rim

The base of a projectile point that I found.

We started our week with a few days hiking around Moab.  Town was crowded but we managed, with Thurman's direction to hike in places that were not busy at all.  On Sunday our weather luck ran out and after a Mother's Day lunch in town, we drove up Sand Flats road to the group camping area, in the rain and sleet.
We were going to camp for a week and volunteer through Passports in Time for the US Forest Service surveying an archeology site and rock art panel.  We arrived to find one cold tent camper, Ray  who was also there for the project.  We shared tea in our camper and then all turned in for an early night.

A snowy night in May

Next morning the rest of the volunteers and archaeologists arrived but it was too cold and snowy to work.  We hung around, got to know each other and did a quick hike up to the site.  Early to bed again, too cold to sit around.  Next morning was sunny and warmer, time to get to work!

The site needed to be mapped, photographed and documented.  We divided up into groups, my group started at the rock shelter.

Archaeologist Catie and artist Valerie discuss the rock art.

Hiking back to our campsite.

Day two we did more mapping, identifying lithics, documenting rock art and exploring.
In the evening we shared dinner, the archaeologists brought food for the group and cooked a few nights. We had lots of time around the camp fire talking and laughing.

My Rock Art sketches

The last day we split up into groups and our group hiked to a different area looking for sites.  We found a lithic scatter that we mapped and part of a metate.  Pretty cool!

Identifying and recording a lithic scatter

Part of a basin metate

Sunset our last night on the rim.

We met so many interesting and wonderful people and learned a lot.  It was a great week and we can't wait to volunteer for another project!  Passport in Time     http://www.passportintime.com/