David Anderson:  Upper McCord Creek, Hood River Mountain

My interest in natural history began when I was about ten years old. My Aunt started a Junior Audubon group for me and my siblings and cousins.  I still have my  bird lists from that time.  I started using iNaturalist  in 2018  to identify organisms and record them.  I have over 21,000 observations and about 3,300 species.  On Friday we’ll explore a beautiful meadow on Hood River Mountain where we’ll  learn to focus our attention on seeing things often overlooked. We’ll learn techniques for taking and adding photos to iNaturalist.  At McCord Creek Saturday, we’ll see some Gorge endemics and have ample time to sharpen photographic and posting skills for iNaturalist.

Kaitlin Andersen:  Dancing Rock, Cape Horn

Kaitlin is a self-taught plant nerd who moved to Portland from Iowa in 2021. She learned about Oregon's native plants while attending Portland Chapter NPSO events and has held various leadership roles in NPSO since 2023. She previously worked for the National Ecological Observation Network in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and Yacolt Burn State Forest, collecting ecological data about soils, coarse downed wood, and phenology. She now works as a Natural Resource Technician at a wetland mitigation banking company, where she enjoys identifying any new plants she finds during her lunch breaks! She has co-led Portland Chapter hikes and uses iNaturalist casually, as well as Merlin Bird ID. 

Virginia Bowers:  Four Sisters

Virginia led her first NPSO hike last spring to Four Sisters, a place dear to her heart as she helped acquire it when working for Columbia Land Trust.  She was also involved in acquiring several properties at nearby Mill Creek Ridge.  Virginia is an amateur plant geek who is still learning.  She loves hiking, backpacking, wildflowers, mushrooms, and nature in general.  Her yard is Backyard Certified and includes lots of native plants.

Roger Brewer: Tom McCall Preserve, Cape Horn

Roger was president of the NPSO Portland chapter from 2011-2013.  He took a botany course at Portland Community College and is otherwise a self-taught botany enthusiast who loves the outdoors, hiking, backpacking, snow shoeing, and cross-country skiing. He has a special interest in ferns, the Saxifrage family, the Heath family, and the Penstemons. Roger is a frequent user of iNaturalist and happy to help anyone with it. He expects to see  Fernleaf, Gray's, Barestem, and Narrow-leaf Desert Parsleys (Lomatium dissectum, papilioniferum, nudicaule, triternatum); Howell's brodiaea (Triteleia grandiflora), Whitestem Frasera (Frasera albicaulis), Sticky-stem Penstemon (Penstemon glandulosus), Fragile Fern (Cystopteris fragilis), Imbricate Sword Fern (Polystichum imbricans), Ookow (Dichelostemma congestum), and Cliff Fern (Woodsia scopulina).

Kim Brown: Monte Cristo

Kim Brown has been the NPSO State Secretary since 2023. She is an ecologist and cartographer who found her passion for native plants through studying native bees. You'll likely see her geeking out over a bug, a bird, or a unique array of mosses.  She enjoys using iNaturalist and encourages others to do the same, since she has used these datasets to create maps that inform restoration projects and influence policy. 

Jason Clinch:  Dancing Rock Preserve, North Section Line #451

Jason is an environmental consultant and principal owner/biologist of Three Creeks Consulting, LLC with a focus on wetlands and botany. He’s been involved with NPSO in a variety of capacities since 2001. Recently honored as an NPSO Fellow (2024), he is currently a Director-at-Large on the state NPSO board and chair of the Rare, Threatened, and Endangered Committee. Jason grew up in the Pacific Northwest and considers himself a jack-of-all trades naturalist with a genuine curiosity for all things wild from lichens and bryophytes to amphibians and reptiles. He has led native plant outings for NPSO and other organizations.

Ethan Coggins: Stacker Butte

Ethan is a specialist with the Washington Department of Natural Resources where he stewards lands of high conservation value. He has an interest in rare plants, weed control, and the function of novel ecosystems. In deeper soils, expect species of balsamroot,  lupine, and scattered patches of bighead clover (Trifolium macrocephalum), harsh paintbrush (Castilleja hispida), and whitestem frasera (Frasera albicaulis). In shallower soils, expect bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva), phlox (Phlox speciosa and hoodii), and bigseed lomatium (Lomatium macrocarpum). Rare species such as Dalles mountain buttercup (Ranunculus triternatus), dark flowered rockcress (Boechera atrorubens), and Douglas’ draba (Cusickiella douglasii) may also be in bloom.

Kate Conley:  Mill Creek Ridge

Kate Conley has worked for Columbia Land Trust as a Natural Area Manager in the Columbia Gorge and East Cascades region for 12 years. She’s a general ecologist whose work touches on all aspects of ecological conservation and restoration. Although not a botanist, she has learned the native plants of the region through on-the-job exposure and enthusiasm for understory communities. Kate is currently managing a native understory restoration project in the oak woodlands of Mill Creek Ridge, with support from the East Cascades Oak Partnership.

Kristin Currin:  Bald Butte

Kristin Currin and An"Drew" Merritt, authors of The Pacific Northwest Native Plant Primer, are co-founders of Humble Roots Nursery, a native plant nursery in Mosier, OR in the Columbia River Gorge. Drew and Kristin are recognized for their efforts in sustainability and promoting native plants. While ethically propagating many important species, their passion for plants has involved them with innumerable native plant endeavors including pollinator and conservation plantings of all shapes and sizes, school gardens, backyard habitats, restoration projects, and rare plant conservation.

Jeff Debell: Wind River Historic Site, Whistlepunk Trail

Jeff  is a forest geneticist with the Washington Department of Natural Resources and in that role is responsible for genetic testing and seed orchard production. He volunteers with the Wind River Trust, a non-profit formed to create new life for the former US Forest Service Wind River Nursery and Ranger Station. Its unifying theme is to create a regional native plant resource center.

Frances Fischer:  Lyle Cherry Orchard

Frances has been working for the Friends of the Columbia Gorge Land Trust since 2018 and has worked in stewardship, record keeping, and restoration of its properties. She currently manages restoration and accessible recreation projects.  A lifelong nature lover, Frances moved to the Gorge after earning her B.S. in Conservation Biology and Ecology with a minor in Entomology from Montana State University. In Bozeman, she worked for several ecology labs studying pollinators and climate change, and she did community outreach for the Montana Wilderness Association. A pollinator fanatic, Frances also serves as the organizer for the Gorge chapter of the Oregon Bee Atlas, a project of Oregon State University. In her free time, Frances enjoys gardening, herbalism, backpacking, and attempting to identify every native plant in the Columbia Gorge.

Denise Hangii:  Chenoweth Bench

Upon discovering both the Native Plant Society and Chenoweth in May 2024, Denise is eager to learn more about the wildflowers and stunning landscapes of Oregon and Washington. Gardening has been a passion for many years, and she finds great joy in observing blooms through the changing seasons. Denise grew up in rural North Dakota fostering a deep appreciation for the land and has cherished memories of the meadowlark’s song. It was a delightful surprise to recognize its familiar melody on Chenoweth. Denise looks forward to meeting fellow hikers and sharing her love of nature.

Kieran Hanrahan: Monte Cristo, Upper McCord Creek

Kieran served on the NPSO Portland chapter board from 2023 to 2025 and has led hikes for the chapter. He’s an enthusiastic amateur botanist and avid iNaturalist user—if you’ve ever  posted an iNaturalist observation of a plant in the state of Oregon, you may well have interacted with him there. Kieran is fond of making trips to far-flung places with uncommon flora and documenting them on the app. He loves Oregon white oaks and the ecosystems that surround them.

Linda Hardie:  Russ Jolley Wayside

Linda has been an active member of the Native Plant Society of Oregon since 1988 and a past-president of Portland Chapter. Wild plants were a part of her childhood in the Siskiyou Mountains, and wild plants continue to be a big part of her adult life.  While a student at UCLA she had the honor of studying field botany with Dr. Mildred Mathias which led to joining the California Native Plant Society and becoming chapter president. She also led hikes and co-edited a book on the plants of the Santa Monica Mountains. Returning to Oregon in 1988 she joined The Nature Conservancy where she worked until retiring in 2009. She will share the history of the Russ Jolley Wayside and focus on the plants growing there.

Mary Hayden:  Wahclella Falls, Salmon River

Mary served on the NPSO Portland Chapter board from 2018 to 2023 as field trip and publicity chair and often leads hikes in the Gorge and surrounding areas. She studied botany intensively one summer at Malheur Field Station and confesses to a lifelong passion for native plants, the outdoors, and nature in general. She has come to enjoy photographing plants and using and sharing iNaturalist. She also keeps binoculars handy for those out-of-reach plants... and birds!

Ron Klump:  Weldon Wagon Road

Ron has been leading plant hikes for the Portland Chapter for the last 15 years.  The Columbia River Gorge is one of his favorite places to hike as the habitat types are limitless.  Ron finds enjoyment  even when blooms are gone and leads winter tree and shrub hikes.  Ron studied botany at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

Joy Markgraf:  Panakanic

Joy founded and organizes a program called Wild About Nature in partnership with the White Salmon library. She also wrote a book in 2023 called Panakanic which recounts stories her husband told about the pioneer history of this wetland starting in the 1870s. For the last forty years she has journaled observations and recruited experts to help document the plants, animals, reptiles, insects, and spiders there. She graduated from Portland’s Museum Art School in 1980 and continues to create nature-based artwork, including botanical illustrations.  Her Animals of the Gorge series will be on exhibit in April at the White Salmon library. 

Beth Markhart: Snipes Mtn/Gotchen Creek, Mosier Twin Tunnels

Beth has been a lifelong professional and amateur botanist. She trained under Dr John Marr and others at the University of Colorado, becoming well-versed in the flora of the Rocky Mountains and high plains. After a career centered on midwest flora she moved to Oregon in 2023 and began exploring the flora in earnest. Her favorite book source for grounding her in the region is Franklin and Dyrness, 1969, Vegetation of Oregon and Washington, USFS Research Paper PNW-80. In 2023 she spent time monitoring rare plant populations with Citizens Rare Plant Watch and learned a ton. Beth brings a strong plant community lens to her field walks and will prompt you to ask questions about nuances of fire succession in forest communities.

Ann Maslen: Russ Jolley Wayside

Ann has a lifelong interest in the natural world that led to an education in biology and a love of botany. As a former employee of both Leach and Berry Botanical Gardens, she developed an interest in gardening with native plants. She now lives in the Mid-Columbia Gorge enjoying gardening and restoring her property with native plants.   Ann has volunteered at the Russ Jolley Wayside for 10+ years maintaining the signature plot that Russ, Nancy Russell, Barbara Robinson, and other gorge champions were dedicated to protecting. It may be possible to see 6 species of Lomatium (Desert Parsley), Diclostemma congesta (Ookow), Balsamorrhiza careyana (Balsamroot), Chaenactis douglasii (Douglas’s Dustymaiden), Eriophyllum lanatum (Oregon Sunshine), Gallardia aristata (Blanketflower), Pyrrochoma carthamoides (Largeflower Goldenweed), Frasera albicaulis (White-stemmed Frasera), Phacelia hastata (Silverleaf Phacelia), Castilleja hispida (Harsh Indian Paintbrush), Penstemon barrettiae (Barrett’s Penstemon), Delphinium nuttallianum 

Michael McKeag: Phone Photography at Rimrock

Michael joined NPSO in 1993 at the suggestion of a landscape architect working on a native plant design for his house.  NPSO field trips introduced him to the plants and habitats of the Columbia River Gorge. Michael went on to create NPSO’s first website, served as state president one term, and later, Portland chapter president and other offices. Michael is an enthusiastic and experienced amateur photographer and iNaturalist user and has taught photography classes for NPSO Portland Chapter. Driving Directions

Christina Mead: Chenoweth Bench

Christina grew up on the eastern crest of the Cascades and has worked as a botanist for Mt. Hood National Forest (east zone) since 2008. Her work has taught her much about plants and their interactions with other forest resources. She enjoys working with conservation partners and agencies pursuing landscape-level recovery efforts. At home she is often working on home improvement projects, establishing a native plant garden and vegetable garden, or working on small arts and crafts.

Drew Merritt:  Russ Jolley Wayside, Bald Butte

Drew Merritt and Kristin Currin, co-authors of The Pacific Northwest Native Plant Primer, are co-founders of Humble Roots Nursery, a native plant nursery. Located in Mosier, OR in the Columbia River Gorge, it’s widely recognized for its efforts in sustainability and promoting native plants. While ethically propagating many important species, Drew and Kristin’s passion for plants has involved them with innumerable native plant endeavors including pollinator and conservation plantings of all shapes and sizes, school gardens, backyard habitats, restoration projects, and rare plant conservation.

James Mickley: Mosier Plateau

James Mickley is the curator of plant collections at the Oregon State University Herbarium, a priceless and irreplaceable collection of vascular plants, bryophytes, and algae,with about 450,000 specimens. He works closely with Oregon Flora, and is a manager of the Flora of Oregon: Vascular Plants project on iNaturalist, serving on the NPSO iNaturalist committee.

Brance Morefield:  Chenoweth Bench

After college in Virginia, Brance left in 2002 to work in Oregon and Washington as a US Forest Service botanist. He worked the next 21 years in every national forest in Oregon, Washington, and most of northern California, ultimately becoming USFS botanist for the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. He now applies his knowledge and experience  to restoration and conservation work in the gorge. On this hike expect to see: Pacific Water Clover (Marsilea oligospora), Californian lobelia (Downingia elegans), Balsamroot (Balsamorhiza spp.), Yampah (Perideridia gairdneri), Arrowleaf Buckwheat (Eriogonum compositum), Desert Parsleys (Lomatium papilioniferum, nudicaule, triternatum); Large flowered Triteleia (Triteleia grandiflora), Whitestem Frasera (Frasera albicaulis, Ookow (Dichelostemma congestum), Puccoon (lithospermum ruderale.)

Barbara Robinson: Rowena Plateau, Native Plant Restoration Tour at Columbia Gorge Discovery Center

Watch this video presentation on the amazing life and  legacy of Barbara Robinson.

Judi Sanders: Native Plant Restoration, The Gorge Discovery Center

Judi has been a wildflower enthusiast since her childhood growing up in the Land of Umpqua.  Now living in Corvallis, she's most familiar with plants in that region and is excited to learn together more about plants in the Gorge.  She's also an enthusiastic and active user of iNaturalist and on NPSO's iNaturalist Committee.

Susan Saul: Klickitat Wildlife Area, Panakanic

Susan is an NPSO Portland Chapter member from Vancouver, Washington. She is also a WNPS Suksdorf Chapter board member and a member of the WNPS Conservation Committee. A lifelong hiker and conservationist, Susan is a recognized volunteer leader in wildland protection campaigns in southwest Washington over 45 years. She took up botany as a retirement activity and discovered the fun of rare plant monitoring in 2010. Susan is knowledgeable about native plants in the south Cascades and the Columbia River Gorge..

Lecia Schall: Mosier Twin Tunnels, Wind River Historic District/Whistlepunk

Lecia is a proud native Oregonian who appreciates Oregon’s biodiversity and particularly The Columbia River Gorge. She is excited to lead and organize hikes and help NPSO members find something new to explore in the Gorge in 2025. Professionally, Lecia has been a teacher for over four decades. She enjoys sharing educational discoveries both in and out of the classroom. Her other volunteer leadership roles have included Scouts, 4-H Wildlife Stewards, Oregon Master Naturalists, and the Backyard Habitat Certification Program. Since joining NPSO in 2019, she has held  roles on the board and helped the Portland chapter and membership at large use and appreciate iNaturalist.  She treasures her time outdoors with other like-minded individuals.

Paul Schlicter:  Klickitat Wildlife Area, Panakanic

Paul is a long-time NPSO member. He served as Portland Chapter hike organizer, led numerous field trips, and has given presentations to chapters in Oregon and Washington.  He was field trip organizer for Portland’s last three NPSO Annual Meetings.  While teaching high school students about native plants, he built a  website for student use. He has since expanded it to display photos and information about much of the flora of the Pacific Northwest. Paul joined Washington Rare Care in 2008 and has conducted dozens of rare plant surveys and reported over 100 rare plant occurrences, more than half new. Paul manages the Facebook pages for Portland Chapter and Oregon Flora and actively conducts plant surveys for local conservation organizations. 

Cloudy Sears: Rowena Plateau

Cloudy’s family raised nursery stock, built rock gardens, and foraged a bit from the forest.  Later she became interested in indigenous uses of plants.  Then came an opportunity to work in streamside restoration and creating wetlands.  She collected native seed, grew plants, then planted and cared for the seedlings.  She never tires of discovering the unique characteristics of individual plants, investigating their habitats, and sharing their stories with others.

Andrew Stern: Upper McCord Creek, Hood River Mountain

Andrew lived in Nigeria during his formative years where he developed a deep appreciation for its diverse wildlife. His interests in photography, hiking, and old-growth forests align closely with those of co-leader David Anderson. He has spent many weekends hiking and exploring the botanical wonders of the Cascade Mountains.

Nicole Wiseman:  Mosier Plateau, Weldon Wagon Road

An avid native plant enthusiast, Nicole has been engaged with the Native Plant Society of Oregon for 17 years. With a background in cultural anthropology and a deep appreciation for plants, she enjoys exploring the relationships between people, land, and flora throughout time. While not formally trained in botany, Nicole is skilled in plant identification using tools like iNaturalist and the collective knowledge of fellow experts and enthusiasts. This iNaturalist-focused hike will introduce participants to the platform’s benefits while contributing valuable data to the iNaturalist database

Sara Woods: Lyle Cherry Orchard

Sara joined Friends of the Columbia Gorge in 2015. As stewardship program manager, she takes a lead role in stewardship and restoration of Friends of the Columbia Gorge Land Trust properties. She has worked in the natural resource field for over two decades and has a diverse background in researching birds, fish, butterflies, plants, and forest carnivores. Studying on the east coast, where she grew up, she acquired degrees in ecology and environmental science. Intrigued by the snow-capped mountains and never-ending beauty of the west, Sara settled in the Gorge in 2003 and completed a master’s degree in environmental management at Portland State University where she researched the Oregon silverspot butterfly. She has led outings with both NPSO and  Friends of the Columbia Gorge. In her free time, Sara loves to adventure with her family and friends—attempting to squeeze every drop out of life through rafting, skiing, camping and mushroom hunting, and enjoying the phenomenal food and drink of the Pacific Northwest.

Carolyn Wright: Stacker Butte

Carolyn has been an NPSO member since the 1970’s and is a long time Wasco County resident.  She retired from Washington’s DNR in 2019 after working in the Natural Areas Program of Klickitat County.  Columbia Hills  was one of seven areas where she worked.  Carolyn has a Master’s in botany from OSU where Kenton Chambers was her major professor. An avid hiker, she hangs out with fellow plant (birds,  mushrooms, rocks, etc.) enthusiasts.  She also gardens and has been an OSU Master Gardener since 2001.

Annual Meeting Header Photo: Grass Widow (Olsynium douglasii), by Ann Maslen