Christa Sadler | Hit the Trail

Christa rowing through rapids — Christa Sadler rowing through rapids

Christa Sadler started playing in the dirt when she was a toddler, much to the dismay of her parents, who ran ragged trying to keep their house clean.

This love affair with all things Earth never really ended. Christa received her bachelor’s degree in paleoanthropology from the University of California at Berkeley.

She continued her studies in geology and paleontology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and finished her Masters degree in Earth Sciences at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

Christa has pursued research in archaeology, geology and paleontology across the globe, including searching for dinosaurs in Montana, fighting off dust storms and overly curious camels in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, and steering clear of annoyed marine iguanas in the Galapagos Islands.

Because she believes that the best way to learn about the earth is out on it, she has since 1988 guided trips to Alaska, Mexico and the Southwest and Grand Canyon on rivers, trails and oceans.

Christa founded This Earth (www.this-earth.com), an educational program that designs earth science exercises, programs and field trips for students age K-12 around the country. She also started a non-profit scholarship foundation for girls in developing countries (www.oneneweducation.org).

Her articles and photographs have appeared in Plateau Magazine, Plateau Journal, Sedona Magazine, Sojourns, and Earth Magazine. Christa wrote the geology section here on Hit the Trail.

She is the author of Life in Stone: Fossils of the Colorado Plateau, about the fossil history of the Colorado Plateau, and the editor and publisher of There’s This River… Grand Canyon Boatman Stories, an anthology of short stories and artwork by guides on the Colorado River.

Christa is also the author of Dawn of the Dinosaurs, published by the Petrified Forest Museum Association. This is a comprehensive look at the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs in the American Southwest.

Her most recent publication is Where Dinosaurs Roamed: Lost Worlds of Utah’s Grand Staircase (published by Glen Canyon Natural History Association), about the paleontology of southern Utah near the end of the Age of Dinosaurs.

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