Margaret Mizushima: Author Spotlight

Margaret shares her enjoyment of the outdoors, giving a variety of parks and places to hike the Rocky Mountains.

Hello! I’m Margaret Mizushima, author of the Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries and a member of Blackbird Writers. These days, I sit at a desk and write—a lot—but in days gone by I enjoyed spending my leisure time outdoors, exploring wild places near our home in Colorado.

Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) and Red Mountain Open Space were two of the places I loved to hike. Many of you might have visited RMNP near Estes Park, Colorado. I think it’s the most beautiful spot on earth. Take a look at the Rocky Mountain National Park website here.

I tried to get up to the park several times per month. It was about a seventy-mile drive from my home, but it was worth it. I could spend the day hiking up to pristine lakes at 11,000 feet in altitude, surrounded by gorgeous mountain peaks. In autumn I hiked along aspen lined pathways that led upward to beautiful peaks colored with pockets of gold. I could travel to meadows filled with dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of elk and listen to the bulls’ melodic bugle at dusk. Otherworldly and completely captivating!

Closer to home, Red Mountain Open Space offered long hikes at lower altitude. The trees and canyons differ from the high country of RMNP, the trails less steep, and the loops varied in distance from two miles to twenty or more.

Emerald Lake, elk, and Red Mountain. All photos by Margaret Mizushima.

Red Mountain Open Space butted up to Soapstone Prairie Natural Area, farther east and lower in altitude. This wild space offered sweeping prairie vistas and grazing area for deer, antelope, and elk. The two spaces together created a wildlife corridor that ran from the western mountains to eastern prairie habitat with a northern boundary that stretched clear into Wyoming. It’s a superb place to spend the day.

Greyrock Mountain offered another favorite hiking trail. This is a challenging trail with an ominous memorial marker at its base, commemorating a tragedy that occurred in 1978. The marker is in memory of Christopher Vigil, a bright nine-year-old who separated from his mother to hike down the trail alone and was never seen again. After thousands of man-hours and weeks of searching, this child has never been found.

Before I hiked this trail, I always stopped at the marker and said a prayer for Christopher and his family. Although I could make it to the Greyrock viewing area without turning back, I only made it to the top of the rock once. The many switchbacks and little used trails shooting off the main trail into the wilderness made me think of Christopher at every turn.

My time in wild places has served me well in the creation of my Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries. With every episode it’s my goal to create action scenes that occur within a wilderness setting that challenges my protagonist K-9 Deputy Mattie Cobb to be the tough and rugged woman that she is.

There are now nine mysteries in this series. The current one, Gathering Mist, released this past October and is set in the wilderness area on the Olympic peninsula in Washington. The setting change for this book is a whole ’nother story. Please read about it in my latest Blackbird Writers blog post.

Peak and Aspen trees, and Hurricane Ridge.

I invite you to join my protagonists Deputy Mattie, her K-9 partner Robo, and veterinarian Cole Walker on their adventures near Timber Creek, Colorado, a fictional town in the Rocky Mountain high country. Each episode stands alone, but the character arc for these protagonists starts with book one, Killing Trail.

I don’t consider myself a mountaineer or a survivalist; I’m a weekend hiker who loves the Colorado Rockies. And I pour my experiences into each story that I write. Here’s hoping you get a chance to explore Colorado’s magnificent parks and trails for yourself. It’s an unforgettable experience!

Margaret Mizushima (pronounced me-zoo-she-ma) is the author of the award winning Timber Creek K-9 Mysteries featuring Deputy Mattie Cobb, her K-9 partner Robo, and veterinarian Cole Walker. Little did Margaret know in her younger years that her experiences as a vet’s wife and hours spent training dogs in obedience and search and rescue would later be applied to her fiction writing. Although Margaret and her veterinarian husband didn’t investigate any murders associated with his clinic, they did experience a few mysteries over the years. After retirement, they downsized their belongings and, along with their two German shorthair pointers Hannah and Bertie, moved from their home state in Colorado to Washington’s Olympic peninsula, where the dogs are fascinated with looking for squirrels in the trees. Margaret and her husband mostly just enjoy the vast forests and the big trees, not necessarily the squirrels.