Kathryn Wilder’s personal story of grief, motherhood, and return to the desert entwines with the story of mustangs as she makes a home on the Colorado Plateau on property bordering a BLM mustang man agement area. Following the loss of three key people in her life—her father, stepfather, and best friend from childhood—Wilder searches for grounding amid the grief, even as she grapples with a former hero ine addiction and custody battles over her two sons. Living in Hawai’i, she reunites with her deep-rooted love for the ocean and builds a relationship with a local activist. However, it is the Colorado Plateau, with its sagebrush-scented plains, deep canyons, and mountain rivers, that she knows as “country big enough to hold sorrow.”

Wilder moves to southwest Colorado, where she finds connection, friendship, and a new sense of purpose among people who, like her, are powerfully drawn to the wild mustangs who share their desert home. Desert Chrome: Water, a Woman, and Wild Horses in the West illuminates these controversial creatures—their plight, what they mean to us, and what can be done to help both habitat and horses stay healthy and wild—and celebrates the animal nature in us all.