My love for the Colorado mountains began in 1977 with my family watching the show The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams. Grizzly Adams was a man wrongly convicted of murder who hid in the mountains with a pet grizzly bear that he rescued as a cub. I grew up in Oklahoma, so the mountains seemed like a distant dream. That dream actually came true when, in 1997, my husband took a job as a State Farm Agent in Durango, Colorado. At the time we had 2 little girls, 4 and 2 years old. Soon after we moved to Durango, we drove up to Kennebec Pass in La Plata Canyon. I could not believe how beautiful wildflowers could be! Up to that point, I hadn't really taken much notice of flowers, but there were just so many in La Plata Canyon, that I couldn't help but notice! Over the next few years, we continued to visit the higher elevation trails, and as we did, my desire to find out the names of all the flowering plants increased.
     In 2006 I saw an article in the Durango Herald about Gudy Gaskill. She was the driving force behind the formation of the Colorado Trail. She was also leading wildflower walks in American Basin that summer. How I wished at the time I could learn from her, but it was not the right time for me. Ready with a recently purchased book, called Rocky Mountain Flora by James Ells, our then family of 4 kids and a Golden Retriever drove to American Basin. I hoped Gudy was there so I could meet her. Sure enough, she was there leading a group of people. I rolled down the window of my car and asked if she was Gudy. She said, "I sure am!" I said, "It is a pleasure meeting you. I just hiked up to Gudy's rest just the other day". To which she replied, "I was hiking that part of the trail one time, and I came to that point and thought, it would be a nice place for a bench. Not long after that the Colorado Trail Foundation built one for me and called it Gudy's rest". Gudy became an inspiration to me. She was a woman who dared to accomplish a dream, she wanted to share it with others, and she taught others to appreciate what she had come to love.
     Soon, I began to take notice of plants around my neighborhood trails as I was walking our dog. I took pictures of the wildflowers and made a list of what I had identified by using the book, Rocky Mountain Flora. However, the book wasn't enough, so I had to find other sources. Eventually, I discovered swcoloradowildflowers.com by Al Schneider, and then came across a Facebook page of Colorado Native Plant Society where people were posting pictures of plants for others to comment. I decided to post a picture of a purple aster and asked if anyone knew what it was. Al Schneider commented and told me it was a Symphyotrichum laeve var. geyeri. I asked him what books he used to identify plants and he gave me the names of two books, Flora
of the Four Corners and Plant Identification Terminology. I had no idea how to use them, so I emailed him and asked if he could teach me. He gave me a call and we talked for about 2 hours where he gave me all kinds of information and resources to use. It was a little overwhelming, but I persevered and eventually began to put the information to use. I also learned scientific names by making myself use the scientific name instead of the common name when I learned a plant. I was determined to learn everything I could about plants.
     In 2019, I toyed with the idea of writing a wildflower book of the many flowering plants in Durango, so I began to take some photographs as I would bike the area trails. In March of 2022, I decided to make that dream come true. I started by hiking or biking twenty different trails many times throughout that season, meticulously documenting and photographing as many plants as I possibly could. My purpose in authoring this book was to engage in nature's game of hide and seek with plants to help both the laypersons and professional botanists have a better understanding of what exists in this area. Also, I wanted to inspire in others an appreciation of the beauty that surrounds them. In the process, I found 402 flowering plants plus 22 county records and 5 rare plants. I photographed every plant with my iPhone 12 or 14 and hiked and biked over 1000 miles in the seasons of 2022 and 2023.
     Finally, I was ready to compile the book. I knew I couldn't do it alone, so I asked Al
Schneider to be my editor, to which he gladly accepted. My book is unique because it is specific to the Durango area and gives locations of the plants corresponding to twenty trails surrounding the town. Plants that are similar are placed together on a page with key characteristics that help you see the differences between them.