Moab's CFI Launches 2026 Adult Adventure Seminar Series With Conservation Experts

Moab's Canyonlands Field Institute is bringing some of the Colorado Plateau's most consequential conservation work into the same room as the guides, outfitters, and land managers who navigate its terrain every season. The organization's newly announced 2026 Adult Adventure Seminar Series will feature public presentations, panels, and workshops led by experts from four regional organizations: the Returning Rapids Project, The Nature Conservancy, the Bears Ears Partnership, and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

CFI announced the series in the March 25 community news digest, positioning it as a spring and summer program built around an intentionally interdisciplinary mix: practical how-to skills like navigation, low-impact camping, and safety alongside deeper sessions on restoration science, collaborative land management, and wilderness policy.

The Returning Rapids Project is the session local river guides are already circling. Co-founded in Moab by Mike DeHoff and Pete Lefebvre in 2019, the project has spent years using historical photographs to document the reemergence of rapids in Cataract Canyon as Lake Powell levels drop. DeHoff's wife, Meg Flynn, a Moab librarian, maintains the project's archive. Their work directly intersects with rafting access: as the reservoir recedes, put-in and take-out logistics on Cataract shift season to season, and DeHoff's cross-disciplinary research trips have drawn geologists, ecologists, and federal agency representatives to the river. A CFI session with the Returning Rapids Project promises the most current read on how those changes will affect anyone running Meander or Cataract this year.

The Bears Ears Partnership session is the one to watch for anyone who wheels or hikes the Cedar Mesa corridor. The organization works at the intersection of tribal heritage, federal land management, and recreational access in Bears Ears National Monument; its presentation is expected to address how collaborative stewardship with tribal nations shapes what's open, how it's managed, and what responsible access actually looks like on the ground.

The Nature Conservancy's contribution focuses on landscape-scale conservation strategy, while SUWA will address wilderness protection policy and trail stewardship tools, including volunteer corps techniques for reducing erosion and managing user conflict on high-traffic routes.

Some workshops are planned for field locations rather than community venues, with on-water and on-trail components limited to small groups. Those slots are likely to fill fastest. Registration and full session schedules are managed through CFI and the partner organizations directly at cfimoab.org.

For local operators, the series carries practical value beyond the classroom. The combination of policy context, restoration science, and stewardship skills in a single local program gives guides and outfitters a direct networking path to organizations whose decisions shape where and how their clients recreate. CFI is positioning the series as a potential launchpad for new stewardship partnerships before the season closes.