GOLDEN GATE CANYON — Marith Reheis may have retired from her work as a geologist 13 years ago, but she's still interested and active in the field. That includes a recent return trip to the Mojave Desert, where she started working in 1984.

 “I belong to an informal group called the Friends of the Pleistocene," or FOP, Reheis said, "and every year someone will volunteer to lead a field trip to show other interested folks the geology, landscape, active faults, evidence for past climate change, etc.  I've been on well over 30 of these trips through the years."

She first took part in a FOP trip in 1979. Leaders prepare a field trip guidebook with a road log and what you might see along the way. They look at the landscape and see an exposure of rocks and try to interpret how the landscape changes.

At night, it’s a big party, with up to 150 people camping in tents and RVs. A big fire is always at the center of wherever they find to set up—usually somewhere they can sleep for free.

Conversation around the fire includes plenty of instruction and debate, Reheis said.

Reheis' father was in the U.S. Air Force, which meant the family traveled along with him. Reheis was born in New Mexico and lived in Maine, Georgia, and London. She majored in geology at the University of Georgia and came to the University of Colorado to pursue a graduate degree.

After graduate school, she worked for the Geological Survey in Nevada and Southern California. She had been hired on funding to explore Yuca Mountain, which was proposed as a nuclear waste depository site.

Lacking today's technology, Reheis worked on estimated dates for soil development, measured dust and maintained a network of dust traps. That includes tracking the dust's properties and what minerals were in it.

“That’s how I got started in the desert and got pulled into working on active faults on the California and Nevada border, and then on climate change," Reheis said. "They found there were really big lakes in all of the deserts."

Reheis has been in Colorado since 1972. In 1977, she moved to Golden Gate Canyon and got married to John Cady, who is now deceased.

Marith has been on the Golden Gate Fire Board since 2013; she currently serves as vice president. She has another year and half left on her term.