Cave Spring is one of the area’s few year-round water sources and an excellent natural campsite, with evidence of almost 1,000 years of human use. The site includes remnants of a cowboy camp in the first alcove that served as an open-air bunkhouse, part of the isolated camps where cowboys lived from the 1890s until 1975, when cattle ranching was discontinued in Canyonlands. Beyond the cowboy camp are signs of earlier human use, including rock markings, grinding slicks, and a smoke-blackened ceiling.