Don Baumgardt is a volunteer open space advocate and retired small business owner now happily residing in Denver, Colorado.  He spent thirty years living in El Paso, Texas cultivating passions for bike riding and being outdoors, where he became something of an expert on places to see in west Texas and southern New Mexico.  Along that path, Don became active in open space advocacy issues including involvement in a successful movement to save over a thousand acres of beloved open space from development in El Paso.  He and his wife moved to Denver four years ago to be closer to family and to have new places to explore.  Not long after arriving he began volunteering for Save Bear Creek Lake Park, a not-for-profit with an ongoing mission to educate and mobilize the public to oppose a reservoir expansion that would destroy significant riparian areas and reduce access to open space in Lakewood, Colorado.

For the Winter 2024-2025 issue, Don recommended A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon, Kevin Fedarko, Scribner, 2024, 512 pages.