Sierra Club Outings leader Karen Greif
Sierra Club Outings leaders, as you might imagine, are a well-traveled bunch. Many have led trips in multiple destinations spanning the United States and abroad, but few have focused their energy on a single area like Karen Greif has with New Mexico's Chaco Culture National Historical Park. For over 25 years, she's run service trips in this UNESCO World Heritage site, which preserves the remains of an Ancestral Puebloan village built nearly 1,000 years ago. "She has created an enormous impact on Chaco Canyon," explains Al Webster, her longtime assistant leader. "The contributions of Sierra Club volunteers can be found in every corner of this isolated site."
Karen calls Chaco Canyon her personal mecca: a place that is both restorative and inspiring. But she wasn't always attached to this remote corner of the Southwest. Growing up on the East Coast, she didn't experience "real mountains" until moving to California for a graduate degree in biology; while there, she learned to backpack in the Sierra Nevada. A longtime Sierra Club member, she then joined the outings program on two Southwest backpack trips that helped establish a lifelong bond with this enchanting region known for its wide-open spaces, expansive vistas, and clear, dry air. "One of my fondest memories is of my very first backpacking trip in the canyons off of Cedar Mesa in southern Utah," Karen recalls. "Three of us played recorder trios while camped deep in a canyon, with the music echoing off the walls in a most wonderful way."
A visit to Chaco Canyon as a service trip participant soon led to leadership training and the start of a long relationship with the park and its staff, whom Karen has come to appreciate as "deeply committed and dedicated individuals working under very challenging conditions and limited resources to preserve our wild places." Park staff, in turn, have helped deepen her commitment to advocate for the protection of the region, which is under constant threat from oil and gas developments. "The apparent lack of appreciation for the deep Native-American history and fragile desert landscape in the name of 'progress,'" she laments, "has made this battle frustratingly long."
"Go somewhere and give yourself the time to truly experience it. If you rush, you might miss the best each place has to offer."
Over the years, she's given back to the park through thousands of hours of service and made a lasting impact on her fellow volunteers. She's inspired some participants to become Sierra Club leaders. Her enthusiasm, perseverance, and attention to detail have earned her many repeat travelers and even some lifelong friends. "Some participants on the Chaco trip come back year after year," she says, "to share in the magic of the place and to give back to the National Park Service."
Though her day job as a professor of biology at Pennsylvania's Bryn Mawr College "isn't directly transferable to the field," Karen acknowledges, "being a scientist gives me a fascination with learning new things and sharing them with others." For instance, she feels a special kind of joy when participants first experience the night sky in Chaco Canyon, an International Dark Sky Park with spectacular views of the Milky Way. Another life skill Karen brings to her trips is an enthusiasm for cooking, particularly Asian cuisine. "Over the years, I have found ways to translate my home recipes to camp cooking," she proclaims enthusiastically, adding, "I aim to feed everyone very well on my trips!"
With retirement approaching in a couple years, Karen plans to move to New Mexico to begin a new chapter near the place that has inspired her for a quarter of a century. If you're looking for some travel inspiration of your own, consider her advice: "Go somewhere and give yourself the time to truly experience it. If you rush, you might miss the best each place has to offer." And be sure to join her this year for "Chaco Canyon Service, New Mexico."