Part outdoor adventure story, part autobiographical opus, and part anthropological investigation, this popular book by Southwest Colorado resident Craig Childs creates a vivid picture of the people who inhabited the Four Corners region a thousand years before. Childs immerses himself in some inspiring but unforgiving areas of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah, as he investigates the “disappearance” of the Anasazi, or Ancient Puebloans from the area. (Most experts agree that the Ancestral Puebloans did not disappear, but instead settled further south and became the Hopi, Zuni, and Rio Grande pueblo cultures.) While some experts have questioned Childs’ theories on the Ancestral Puebloans, the power of the narrative he creates, and his passionate engagement with his story make this a riveting read. For the non-expert interested in the Four Corners landscape, history and culture, this is highly recommended, not least for the many beautiful passages that meld nature writing, geology and history:

“I looked up and saw rock art unfurling down a sunbaked cliff, and bits of fallen cliff dwellings hanging from shallow alcoves. The movement of people is one of these thin veneers across the planet’s surface. Flowing over the geologic ripples of the Colorado Plateau, people once slipped into these convenient spaces, journeying between gaps and along ridges as the earth flinched and rolled around them.”

Our teen outdoor adventure programs Canyon Country and Wilderness Leadership will be exploring this fascinating region of the U.S. this summer.