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P.O. 25106
Albuquerque, NM 87125

1-800-2-Go-Trek

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Activities

You can choose from the following options to build your own trip or we can arrange it for you. The activities range from physical to mental challenges, both experience or skill based. Our aim is to develop a program that complements and integrates the goals and curriculum of your school into your trip.

Adventure

You will never forget hiking through badlands, backpacking into the mountains, camping in wilderness, or rock climbing up a red rock canyon wall. Individual and group challenges, from a 'solo' experience in the woods to a team ropes course, build confidence and self-awareness. Finding the right challenge for your students is important and there are adventures to fit all ages and experience levels.

Archaeology

Field methods include surveying, GPS and GIS mapping, excavations, artifact analysis. Experimental techniques, which allow us to investigate ancient cultures through hands-on recreations, include weaving yucca fibers, ceramics and pit firings, making atlatls, and grinding corn and cooking with stones on open fires.

Art

Traditional arts of the Southwest — silversmithing, ceramics, and weaving. Other activities available in the workshop are wood carving, drawing and painting, beadwork, and nature-based sculptures.

Cultural Exchange

Camp as a group with Navajo and Hopi families, all friends of Cottonwood Gulch. Visits with these families often lead to sharing knowledge about each other's lifestyles and cultures. A wonderful way to enrich the informal and experiential teaching and learning that occurs on your trip. Navajo sweats and other special ceremonies are possible.

Ecology

Field techniques include site monitoring, habitat restoration, population mapping (flora and fauna), water and soil chemistry, fossil indexing. Interpretive projects for schools range from nature hikes to creating your own custom field guide to 'reading the landscape'.

Service Learning

Volunteer in the Thoreau community (schools, senior citizen centers, continuing education courses), conduct needed habitat restoration and trail work in the National Forest, help maintain a National Park, or take charge of needed building projects at Cottonwood Gulch and for our neighboring ranchers.

Wilderness Skills & Ethics

Leave No Trace camping, backpacking skills, orienteering with map and compass, survival techniques and first aid essentials. Ethics involve weighing and balancing needs of the many users of public lands, from ranchers and loggers to backpackers and wolves.