Robin Patten presents Looking for Alice: Retracing Alice Eastwood's Botany Expeditions in Utah

Alice Eastwood (1859-1953) was a self-taught botanist and herbarium curator at the California Academy of Sciences for over 50 years. She collected and catalogued plants from Colorado to California and many places beyond, including southeast Utah. Guided by Al Wetherill, Eastwood was the first botanist into some of Utah’s high desert terrain, traveling at a significant time in the development of the American West. 

In spring of 2025, Robin Patten retraced Eastwood’s 1892 and 1895 Utah expeditions by car and on foot. She returned to the route in the hot summer months, on or near the same date as Eastwood collected plants, to compare what Eastwood found with what is growing now. The result is Looking for Alice: Time and Truth in the High Desert of Hope, a story of the high desert, two women (Alice and Robin) who traversed that land, and what they found and felt over one hundred and thirty years apart.

Join us Saturday, May 2 at 6pm for a discussion with the author of this unique and compelling project. This event is free and open to the public, at the Bears Ears Education Center (567 W Main St, Bluff, UT 84512).

About Robin Patten: A freelance writer, naturalist, and teacher, Robin Patten has spent most of her life exploring and writing about the natural world. Her lyrical nonfiction weaves together ecology, environmental history, and personal narrative, often delving into the human relationship with nature and the environment. She received the John Burroughs Nature Essay Award for “The Carcass Chronicle,” and her writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Georgia Review, and elsewhere. Her first book, The Mountain: Journeys in High Places, continues her exploration of people and place. In 2020, Robin began a life in Bluff, Utah, moving from the mountains of Montana to make the high desert home. Retracing Alice Eastwood’s path is part of her ongoing work to better understand this desert.