About us
beckwith-bear basin experiential education
Put a "BEE" in your bonnet!
buzz your brain with new ideas
We are excited to launch our newest AIPA state funded homeschool enrichment program with our partners at BEE
(Beckwith-Bear Basin Experiential Ed).
Beckwith and Bear Basin Ranches have collaborated to provide two unique venues for our Program. Experiential Learning combines some classroom preparation with hands-on or feet-on-the-ground outdoor experiences that instill the core meaning of the subject. It’s one thing to listen to a lecture and another to get out, experience, and practice what you have learned. The BEE staff has an extensive background in Experiential Learning from guiding Outward Bound to teaching outdoor oriented programs for several Universities and Colorado College.
Beckwith and Bear Basin Ranches are steeped in history you can see and experience.Designed for middle schoolers (ages 11-15) who are ready to tackle more advanced disciplines along with fun outdoor skills, we bring in Experts in their fields each week as Guest Instructors In combination with our trained staff. Our topics include: Archaeology, Geology, Astronomy, History, Ecology, Tracking and Wildlife behavior, Conversational Spanish, Blacksmithing, Firefighting, Wilderness skills, and Search and Rescue.
BArb and linda
Barb (right) and Linda (left) are musicians we know them well having worked many years as wilderness horse pack trip guides for Bear Basin Ranch. They are part of a Bear Basin Staff committee helping to form the new BEE curriculum.
Barbara Saint-Amour grew up in Minnesota, with a love of the outdoors, horses, and music. She was a Colorado College graduate in 1974 and taught elementary school in Canon City for 30 years. But her childhood dreams came true working for Bear Basin Ranch fourteen years, from 1998 to 2012 as a wrangler and a pack trip guide in the Sangres. She plays music with several groups in town as well as playing for Community United Methodist Church and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church every Sunday.
Linda Loraine is a certified aromatherapist, horse woman, an avid gardener, and has significant knowledge of edible and medicinal plants and herbs. She hails from Kansas and moved to Colorado in 1995. In 2000 she came to work for Bear Basin Ranch as cook and pack trip food supply buyer. The next two summers she returned as a pack trip guide. In 2003 she worked for the Mountain Park Environmental Center in Beulah as an environmental educator with Pueblo District 60 fifth grade elementary students. Summer camps provided an opportunity for her to integrate experiences with the Mountain Park and Bear Basin Ranch in the Pathways for Young Women program which featured hiking, horseback riding and challenge course experiences.
Sheila bean
Sheila Bean, is a midwestern gaI having grown up on a beef and hog farm in south Kansas until she got married and moved to Edmond Oklahoma where she got her high school diploma. After her husband, Kevin graduated from college they moved to Bartlesville Oklahoma where they grew 3 daughters and lived in the country. They worked together at growing a large garden, berry patch, and orchard. Then added on bees, chickens, and the ever present dogs and cats. They moved to Colorado 4 years ago starting a very different garden and enjoying outdoor life.
Sheila has 9 grandchildren ages 7-21 that she sees often. She is very familiar with managing a boisterous group of smart, curious kids.
hal walter
Hal Walter is a mountain athlete, writer and coach. Hal will be one of our Experts teaching about the professional world of running.
Hal has won the World Championship Pack-Burro Race seven times and also the Leadville Boom Days Pack-Burro Race five times, as well as other smaller burro races. He also qualified for the Boston Marathon twice, finished the Leadville Trail 100, and the Leadville Loppet cross-country ski marathon.
Hal has coached cross-country and track at Custer County Schools, including many state qualifiers and one state champion. Hal has also been a licensed substitute teacher in K-12.
Hal has a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Colorado. He worked in publishing for many years, and taught as an adjunct professor at CSU-Pueblo. He has written four books, and is co-author of a forthcoming book about his son Harrison’s experience as an autistic student and athlete at Colorado Mountain College.
SUSAN KEMPIN
Susan Kempin is a retired educator who spent 16 years shaping young minds in Olathe, Kansas—first wrangling 5th graders for about 12 years then stepping up as a reading and math specialist to help struggling students from kindergarten through 5th grade. She was selected as “Teacher of the Year” multiple times by her peers. Susan earned a Business Administration degree from the University of Kansas She later added a Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction from Emporia State University.
After raising three sons, Susan and her husband Don have traded classroom chaos for mountain serenity in Westcliffe, Colorado. You can often find Susan outdoors hiking, golfing, playing disc golf, pickleball or just stargazing under some of the clearest skies in the state.
SARA SHIELDS
Sara Shields is a 4th generation rancher - calling San Isabel Ranch, Westcliffe CO home. Her parents, Ben and Bet Kettle, strongly encouraged a tenure away from the ranch that included a graduate degree in Equine Science and a Master's of Agriculture, Beef Industry Leadership - both from Colorado State University. Her experiences after college included multiple summers spent in California working for a variety of Quarter Horse trainers in both English and Western disciplines. In addition she worked for a 1000 head registered Red Angus ranch in Sheridan Wyoming, and served 3 1/2 years as the director of Membership Services for the Nebraska Cattlemen Association; focusing on producer education and serving as a "voice" in legislative and regulatory communication in Lincoln, NE and Washington D.C.
After 10 years Sara and her husband, Mike Shields returned home to the family ranch helping to build a cow/calf, yearling, bred heifer and hay enterprises that give San Isabel Ranch it's foundation to which the tradition, started in 1872 began with her Great Grandfather, William Charles Kettle.
AMY FINGER
Amy Finger, born in Cedar Rapids, IA, lived four formative years in Denver, CO (age 10-13) where she spent summers learning to love the mountain wilderness on week-long backpacking trips with friends of the family. This experience changed her life, shaping the person who later became a wilderness guide and back country horse woman. It provided the inspiration to start BEE and influence students in their early teens as she was to have a opportunity for similar life changing experiences.
At 17, Amy attended the University of Iowa for a year and then moved to Colorado on her own. She spent 3 years at the University of Colorado graduating with degrees in both Geology and Climatology. Working towards a graduate degree in Land Use planning, she was faced with the choice of creating a small adventure tour business or continuing on to graduate school. She chose the business route to continue learning with active, outdoor-oriented experiences.
And a great experiential school it was. Guiding three and five day horse pack trips in the wilderness range that runs parallel to Bear Basin Ranch, was a teaching experience. She shared with clients her understanding of how the mountains were formed, instilling the awe of the immense powers at work. The Sangre de Cristo Range is heavily shaped by several episodes of mountain uplift and glacial erosion.
Over the years, she and husband, Gary Ziegler designed and taught many experiential learning programs for Universities, Colorado College and Outward Bound. They created an International business introducing people to different cultures on horseback in Peru and Argentina.
BEE is her latest project where she hopes to bring together the best of her past guides and an incredible array of talent present in the Wet Mountain Valley to create a unique enrichment program in Custer County.
GARY ZIEGLER
A Colorado Springs native and graduate of Colorado College, Gary Ziegler is a field archaeologist with a geology background, mountaineer and explorer who has spent a lifetime finding and documenting remote Inca sites in the Vilcabamba range of Peru’s Southern Andes. He has climbed 14 Andean peaks above 20,000 feet and has made first ascents of seven over 18,000 feet.
Along the way he served a combat tour with Army special operations in Vietnam leaving as a Captain. He briefly staffed for the Peace Corps and worked as a program director and senior instructor for Colorado Outward Bound School.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and The Explorers Club. He has featured in documentary films for National Geographic, the BBC, Discovery Channel, Science and History Channels.
In 2013, he was awarded the title “Distinguished Lecturer” at NASA’s Marshal Space Center. He is published in numerous professional journals and is co-author of “Machu Picchu’s Sacred Sisters; Choquequirao and Llactapata” with University of Colorado archeo-astronomer, Kim Malville.
He has taught at Colorado College and Peru’s national university, San Marcos. His home base is 4000 acre Bear Basin Ranch in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Southern Colorado’s Custer County where he is a former County Sheriff and a founder of the Search and Rescue unit.
He was recently Ride Director of the Pikes Peak Range Riders dedicated to preserving Colorado’s western heritage and the Pikes Peak or Bust charity Rodeo. He is currently Director of The Andean Research Project conducting ongoing field research on Inca sites associated with Machu Picchu and Choquequirao.