Fifteen years ago, at the end of a six-month road trip, Christina Selby visited Santa Fe and never left. In her quest to write and photograph stories that engage readers in the natural world, she has kayaked the Sea of Cortez, followed honeybees through the Himalayas, and pursued lost monkeys in the Amazon. She spent the past two years crisscrossing New Mexico in search of wildflowers for her new book, Best Wildflower Hikes New Mexico (Falcon Guides). The project took her from the coldest alpine lakes to the hottest deserts in the state and everywhere in between. “Because it was my job to hike, I did it on weekdays, when there were few others on the trails—a fact of life in New Mexico, for which I am grateful every day.”