Christa Sadler – This Earth

Christa Sadler has worked in the outdoors in one form or another since she was young. She is a geologist, educator, writer and naturalist with a serious addiction to rivers, deserts, mountains and, at times, chocolate. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Physical Anthropology and Archeology from the University of California at Berkeley, and her Master’s degree in Earth Sciences from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Christa’s resume includes research in archaeology, geology and paleontology across much of 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.

Her work as a naturalist and guide has taken her throughout the American Southwest as well as to Alaska, Baja California and Ecuador. She has taught introductory geology and paleontology at Northern Arizona University and Coconino Community College in Flagstaff and Prescott College, in Prescott, Arizona. Her split personality life has her teaching geology, backpacking and running rivers in the Grand Canyon and the southwest in the spring and fall, and escaping to Alaska to run rivers in the summers. Winters are spent recovering—or working as a sea kayak guide in Baja California, traveling to Central America to build houses, or any number of other things.

Her articles and photographs have appeared in, among others, SiteLines, Plateau Magazine, Plateau Journal, Sedona Magazine, Sojourns and Earth Magazine. She has published There’s This River … Grand Canyon Boatman Stories, an anthology of short stories and artwork by boatmen on the Colorado River and is the author of Life in Stone, about the fossil history of the Colorado Plateau. She is also the author of Dawn of the Dinosaurs: the Late Triassic in the American Southwest, Where Dinosaurs Roamed: Lost Worlds of Utah’s Grand Staircase, and The Colorado.

In addition to This Earth, Christa founded One New Education, which provides scholarships for girls in developing countries to attend school. The foundation has 29 girls from 9 countries currently, and has helped three students graduate from high school and move on with careers or further education.

Occasionally she makes it home to Flagstaff, where she lives among a large collection of rocks and fossils, all collected on the up and up.

Articles about Christa and her work:

Paddler Magazine (March 2004)
Lapidary Journal (May 1997)
National Geographic Magazine (June 2003)
Sports Afield Magazine (August 1999)
Mountain Living Magazine (September, 2005)