A review of The Afterlife of Mal Caldera
Exploring humanity’s relationship with water in Water Bodies
While Marissa Harwood was born in Omaha, Nebraska, she moved to Colorado when she was four days old and considers herself a native. She grew up in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains and spent much of her childhood camping, hiking and building forts in the woods. She earned a BA in English and a Secondary Teaching License from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Later, she attended Western Colorado University and earned an MFA in genre fiction. She has taught English at three K-12 schools and two Colorado colleges. Currently, she lives in Greeley, where she teaches high school, plays with her daughter (a true CO native) and reads a lot of books. She hopes to earn a doctorate in the near future.
Hiking With Kids Colorado: 52 Great Hikes for Families provides a guide for a hike a week within a year, detailing trails suitable each season—including winter—for the entire family. Inspired by son Brian, accompanied by husband Ben and championed by her own nature-loving parents, Colorado-based author Jamie Siebrase birthed this “how to hike with children” book. (See our review of Siebrase’s picture book Tonight! A Bedtime Story here.) Winter hikes include the “Pines to Peaks Loop”, a 1.1-mile lollipop shaped treading trail, easy to access from downtown Boulder, crossing three distinct ecosystems: meadow, ponderosa pine parkland, and forest. Another hike, “Lake Gulch and Inner Canyon Loop,” begins in Castle Rock within Castlewood Canyon State Park. The 2.2-mile hike begins easy and turns moderate, passing through ponderosa pine, Gambel oaks, mountain mahogany, and snowberry along the trail. Near Snowmass Village, “The Rim Trail South to Spiral Point” boasts iconic vistas. This is a 2.6 mile out-and-back hike that is moderate in difficulty. From the trailhead, hike west through aspen groves. This is a popular snowshoeing trail in winter. Siebrase offers useful details on subjects like trail etiquette and preparedness needs, as well as keeping canine-children leashed. The text is clearly broken down into seasonal hikes offering a variety of difficulty and distance explanations, as well as directions to trailhead locations, a familiar obstacle to the would-be family hiker. Legible trail maps show where to go once arrived and the book is peppered with fun facts. — Shelli Rottschafer
