I’ll admit it: I can’t resist a guidebook. I’ve collected dozens and dozens over the years from trail guides to birding primers, wildflower identifiers to overland hiking guides. I have books that detail areas I’ll probably never visit and books that inform readers about areas that I know like my backyard. I’ve even written a few guidebooks about Colorado’s outdoors.

While my collection of books with information, maps, detailed trail directions and gear lists—especially pertaining to Colorado—is vast, it didn’t include any coffee table books. Until now.

Purchase from Colorado Parks & Wildlife

At Home in Nature: The History of Colorado’s State Parks is a coffee table book in the truest sense of the genre—hefty, hard-bound, with glossy full-page photos, stories, essays, anecdotes and historical tidbits. But it is also a guidebook that will help readers learn about and navigate the Colorado State Park system. While it doesn’t offer detailed trail guides or specific information about particular campgrounds or picnic areas, it gives readers information that will help them find the perfect state park , as well as educate them on the history of the system.

This book is truly unique in another way. It was conceived by the Colorado Department of Parks and Wildlife, the state agency charged with overseeing the health and future of Colorado’s state parks and wildlife through research, habitat protection and management, conservation practices, administration of hunting and fishing licenses and registration of off-highway vehicles and river outfitters.

At Home in Nature originated in 2017 from a desire to teach incoming officers more about the agency. A former statewide training manager, Corrine Servis said, “I wanted new rangers to understand our history and where we came from.” She began searching for information and, seven years later, the book was published.

The agency and the large group of people behind this book believed the park system needed its story to be told. And it’s a story that involves people who care for some of the nation’s most breathtaking state parks, offering adventure and discovery in ecosystems ranging from wind-swept prairies to deep canyons and snow-capped mountains. The Colorado state park system sprawls across ecosystems from desert to grasslands; canyons to riverbanks.

State Forest State Park in the Medicine Bow Range of the Rocky Mountains rises to more than 12,000 feet; on the other side of the state, the Navajo State Park sits on sagebrush shrubland. The system has more than 4,000 campsites, cabins, and yurts, and is used for biking, boating, fishing, hiking, camping, wildlife viewing and birdwatching.

The concept of state park systems began in the 1880s, mostly in the eastern part of the country. The first, Niagara State Park, was established in New York in 1885.

Colorado’s natural riches make it seem like the establishment of a state park system would have been an easy task here, but Colorado was a little late in the game, according to the writers of At Home in Nature.

“Attempts to establish a park system in 1887 and again in 1937 foundered, and the effort languished until 1955, when the Colorado Legislature created the State Park and Recreation Board,” according to the book.

Finally, in 1962, the state’s first park opened near Walsenburg. Lathrop State Park was named after Harold W. Lathrop, the first director of the parks and recreation board. By 1970, there were nearly two dozen parks scattered throughout the state. Today, there are 43.

One of the strengths of At Home in Nature is its presentation of the evolution of Colorado Parks and Wildlife. It highlights dozens of people who had an impact on the agency and the parklands; and it offers an in-depth look at the funding challenges and how the control of the country’s lands, waters and natural resources should be managed.

In true coffee table fashion, At Home in Nature is a trove of sidebar stories, fascinating trivia,  dozens of black and white historical photos and stunning color landscapes.