PAGOSA SPRINGS – Chimney Rock National Monument opened to the general public for guided tours this week, but Pagosa Springs Elementary School third-graders had the place all to themselves earlier in May.

“When the monument was designated in 2012, we realized we needed to up our game to offer more educational activities,” said Susan Yalom, education committee chairperson for the nonprofit Chimney Rock Interpretive Association. “We’ve been getting more and more requests from schools, so we expanded this year to offer preseason field trips before the monument opens to the public.”

CRIA operates the interpretive program at Chimney Rock with the help of more than 80 volunteers in partnership with the San Juan National Forest. In addition to hosting guided tours for the public, CRIA hosts field trips for public, private, charter and home-school groups. Educational programs can be tailored for kindergarten through high school students.

Pagosa Springs Elementary School relies on annual field trips to Chimney Rock to teach anthropology as part of its Science, Technology, Engineering and Math program.

“This is a tradition for all of our third-grade classes,” said Matthew Wolford, Pagosa Springs Elementary School third-grade teacher. “It allows the kids to piece together the puzzle of the past by using their creativity rather than solely relying on the internet to answer all their questions.”

“I liked learning about how the Puebloans lived, what they did and ate, where they slept,” said Madison Shamburg, who is in Mary Kay Mayo’s third-grade class.

Parents who accompanied their children on the field trip found the experience just as rewarding.

“I didn’t know any of what I learned today with the kids,” said Erica Shamburg of Pagosa Springs. “Now, I want to bring the rest of the family up here on a guided tour.”

Gloria Bissmeyer, a CRIA volunteer for 12 years who is part Mescalero Apache, led the children on a tour of the ancestral Puebloan sites, weaving lessons of ancient culture into the tour. Students then headed down the hill to try their hands at creating rock-art designs on paper, molding pottery from Play-Doh, and grinding corn the old-fashioned way. They also investigated native plants, grains and natural fibers that would have been used for food and clothing.

Yalom led interpretive tours along the nature trail, and CRIA volunteer Lynne Stinchfield helped every boy and girl learn to throw an atlatl, an ancient hunting tool. The kids also got up close and personal with wildlife pelts, with the help of Pagosa Ranger District wildlife biologist Brandy Richardson, who explained about the wild animals that may have been the objects of those hunts.

The national monument covers 7 square miles and preserves hundreds of ancient homes and ceremonial buildings of the ancestral Puebloans. Chimney Rock is the highest in elevation of all the Chacoan sites of the Four Corners, at about 7,000 feet above sea level.

Ann Bond is the public affairs specialist for the San Juan National Forest.