Vividly portrays the daily lives of several women and how they battled extreme weather conditions, isolation that could drive a person mad, disease that often took their children from them, poverty and starvation, and primitive living conditions. All the stories are fictional, but all are based on women's actual experiences. The West could not have progressed and prospered without the strength, courage, and determination of such women.

Since the Pikes Peak gold rush in the mid-nineteenth century, women have gone into the mountains of Colorado to hike, climb, ski, homestead, botanize, act as guides, practice medicine, and meet a variety of other challenges, whether for sport or for livelihood. Janet Robertson recounts their exploits in a lively, well-illustrated book that measures up to its title, The Magnificent Mountain Women. Arlene Blum provides a new introduction to this edition.

The world was without hope for many of Colorado's young men in 1933. Youth unemployment was 25 percent and another 29 percent were working only part-time. Many quit school before graduation to work odd jobs to support their families. Others took to hitching rides on railroad cars desperate for a new opportunity. Even young men who finished their schooling were without work as they had no job experience or training. Then, in 1933, with the beginning of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) young men could go to work in Colorado's national parks, state parks, national forests and other public lands. They no longer worried where their next meal would come from. Now they could learn new job skills. In Colorado CCC boys planted trees, erected fences and telephone lines and put out forest fires. Today we still use the roads and trails they built. CCC work was made to last. At the program's end in 1942 over 30,000 Colorado men served at over one hundred twenty camps. And work was completed in nearly every county in the state. Robert W. "Bob" Audretsch retired as a National Park Service ranger at Grand Canyon in 2009 after nearly 20 years of service. Since then, he has devoted himself full time to research and writing about the Civilian Conservations Corps (CCC). Bob grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and attended Wayne State University where he received a BA in history and a MS in library science. Prior to his work as a ranger, he was a librarian in Michigan, Ohio, and Colorado. Bob has a lifelong interest in history, nature, books, and art and has written numerous publications in the fields of library science, sports, and history. Bob is the author of Grand Canyon's Phantom Ranch (Arcadia Publishing, 2012), Shaping the Park and Saving the Boys: The Civilian Conservation Corps at Grand Canyon, 1933-1942 (Dog Ear Publishing, 2011), We Still Walk in Their Footprint: The Civilian Conservation Corps in Northern Arizona, 1933-1942 (Dog Ear Publishing, 2013), Selected Grand Canyon Area Hiking Routes, Including the Little Colorado River and Great Thumb (Dog Ear Publishing, June, 2014) and, with Sharon Hunt, The Civilian Conservation Corps in Arizona (Images of America) (Arcadia Publishing). He resides in Lakewood, Colorado.

Letters to her sister about the author's travel in Colorado, autumn and early winter 1873.

Throughout the development of the American West, prostitution grew and flourished within the mining camps, small towns, and cities of the nineteenth-century Rocky Mountains. Whether escaping a bad home life, lured by false advertising, or seeking to subsidize their income, thousands of women chose or were forced to enter an industry where they faced segregation and persecution, fines and jailing, and battled the hazards of disease, drug addiction, physical abuse, pregnancy, and abortion. They dreamed of escape through marriage or retirement, but more often found relief only in death. An integral part of western history, the stories of these women continue to fascinate readers and captivate the minds of historians today. Expanding on the research she did for Brothels, Bordellos, and Bad Girls (UNM Press), historian Jan MacKell moves beyond the mining towns of Colorado to explore the history of prostitution in the Rocky Mountain states of Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Each state had its share of working girls and madams like Big Nose Kate or Calamity Jane who remain celebrities in the annals of history, but MacKell also includes the stories of lesser-known women whose role in this illicit trade nonetheless shaped our understanding of the American West.

"Distributed to the book trade by Mountaineers Books"--T.p. verso.

Flying Colorado Mountain Weather is about reading clouds and flying mountain weather. Pilots will learn about: the joys and gravity of mountain winds; how to recognize and interpret various mountain clouds, such as unsteady lenticulars, rotors, K-H clouds, and little orphan anvils; lethal downdrafts on the windward side; how to fly mountain weather and turbulence.

Justice Lonesome has enjoyed a life of bounty. Even so, she’s inherited the curse of the Lonesome. A poet’s soul. Which means she’s still searching for something. Searching for peace. Searching for the less…that’s more. And when the foundation of her life is pulled out from under her, grieving, she goes to the mountains to find her oasis. She hits Carnal, Colorado and decides to stay. Deke Hightower lost everything at the age of two. He lost it again at fifteen. His life has not been about bounty. It’s been about learning to live with less, because there’s no way to get more. Deke’s also watched all his friends go down to the women who gave them what they needed. He wants that for himself. But he knows that search isn’t going to be easy because he’s a rider. His home is the road. That’s the only place he can breathe. And the woman who takes her place at his side has to do it sitting on the back of his bike. When Deke meets Justice, he knows she’s not that woman. She’s cute. She’s sweet. And she’s into him, but she’s got it all and Deke knows he won’t fit into that. So he holds her at arm’s length. Establishes boundaries. And Justice will take it because she wants Deke any way he’ll let her have him. But when Justice finds herself a pawn in a dangerous game, Deke makes a decision. When he does, he has no idea he’s just opened himself up to bounty.

?See, there she is!? cried one visitor to the Centennial Exposition. ?Just think! She killed all them animals,? echoed another. ?There, that?s her!? All during the hot Philadelphia summer of 1876, throngs of people pushed and shoved their way into the Kansas-Colorado Building, eager to catch a glimpse of the small, dark-haired woman responsible for creating the extraordinary display of bears, deer, and other mammals cavorting over a Rocky Mountain landscape. Curious, skeptical, friendly?on and on they came, until the policemen stationed at the doors were hard-pressed to maintain control. The fairgoers were intent on seeing for themselves the ?modern Diana? who had come all the way from the wilds of Colorado. Maxine Benson?s finely crafted biography of Martha Maxwell illuminates the little-known but important career of a remarkable woman. Naturalist, taxidermist, museologist, artist?Maxwell pioneered in a number of fields new for women. Born in Pennsylvania in 1831 and educated in the Midwest, she traveled to the gold fields of Colorado with her husband in 1860. A chance encounter with a German taxidermist determined her lifework, and Maxwell soon devoted her boundless energy to hunting and mounting all forms of Rocky Mountain wildlife, which she displayed in unusual habitat settings in her museum in Boulder and later in Denver. Her spreading fame led to an invitation to exhibit her collection at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, where she achieved international renown. As Maxwell?s major scientific and artistic contributions to natural history taxidermy and display were recognized, her influence carried to the Smithsonian Institution. Separated from her husband and alienated from her daughter, however, she became increasingly unhappy as her professional accomplishments grew. Her tragic and lonely death in 1881 revealed something of the price she paid for daring to be different. Like that of other accomplished women of her era, Maxwell?s fame did not keep pace with the significant influence she had on her profession. Thanks to Maxine Benson, Martha Maxwell now takes her rightful place in the history of the West and of the nation.

A celebration of feminine beauty, athleticism, wisdom, and skill—Women Who Dare profiles twenty of America’s most inspiring women climbers ranging from legends like Lynn Hill to the rising stars of today, with stunning color photography by veteran adventure photographer Chris Noble.