In 2022, I started a work as a Park Ranger for the US Forest Service (Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, Salt Lake Ranger District). This was a dream job I had given up on decades ago, but here I was after all, a real life park ranger. I was excited to spend the summer in the mountains, sharing the joy of nature with fellow visitors. For the past several years, my favorite part of exploring the outdoors was observing and then researching every little bit of nature I encountered. This is possible when you spend time in one particular place, which I had done previously in the Ventana Wilderness, Yosemite National Park, and southern Utah.

That summer, I was assigned to be the lead park ranger for Little Cottonwood Canyon, with my main patrol area to be the Albion Basin at the top of the canyon, near the famous ski resort of Alta. Spring comes late to the mountains because of the deep snowpack, so my first day patrolling Albion Basin was July 1st, 2022. I wasn’t a flower guy before, I had heard about the wildflower meadows and the wildflower festival, but within my first day I was already hooked.

Since then I’ve met, identified, recorded, and photographed nearly 300 species of flowers in the Wasatch Mountains. I had an ever-growing spreadsheet of notes and a total mess of photos that I’ve slowly worked through identifying, matching, and studying. As I left Utah, I thought it would be a fitting project, a going-away gift to myself, to organize all of my floral friends in one place. My experiences in Utah were formative, and my most important Utah moments, memories, and personal growth came from the Wasatch Mountains. So I’ve merged that spreadsheet and the photos into a book, or perhaps just a glorified list. Either way, it’s a scrapbook of my time in Utah, as seen from the perspective of my most memorable days as a ranger, hiker, and explorer.

The link on the left takes you to the book Mark’s Wasatch Wildflowers, complete with some more commentary, a few short essays, and of course all of my wildflower photos, organized by scientific name. The link on the right goes to my original spreadsheet, which has the full flower list, and includes a little more info like common name, when and where I first saw that species, if it is native or invasive, and a few identification notes. Neither the book, photos, or list are meant to be a comprehensive list of Wasatch wildflowers, a botanical guide, good photos, or even accurate identifications. They are simply a scrapbook of my hours and days and years of delighted wandering through the meadows of the Wasatch.