The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier - Softcover

Barcott, Bruce

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1570615217 ISBN 13: 9781570615214

Publisher: Sasquatch Books, 2007

Synopsis

In The Measure of a Mountain, Seattle writer Bruce Barcott sets out to know Rainier. His method is exploratory, meandering, personal. He begins by encircling it, first by car then on foot. He finds that the mountain is a complex of moss-bearded hemlocks and old-growth firs, high meadows that blossom according to a precise natural timeclock, sheets of crumbling pumice, fractured glaciers, and unsteady magma. Its snow fields bristle with bug life, and its marmots chew rocks to keep their teeth from overgrowing. Rainier rumbles with seismic twitches and jerks—some one-hundred-thirty earthquakes annually. The nightmare among geologists is the unstoppable wall of mud that will come rolling down its slopes when a hunk of mountain falls off, as it does every half century (and we’re fifty years overdue). Rainier is both an obsession and a temple that attracts its own passionate acolytes: scientists, priests, rangers, and mountain guides. Rainier is also a monument to death: every year someone manages just to disappear on its flanks; imperiled climbers and their rescuers perish on glaciers; a planeload of Marines remains lodged in ice since they crashed into the mountain in 1946. Referred to by locals as simply "the mountain," it is the single largest feature of the Pacific Northwest landscape—provided it isn’t hidden in clouds. Visible or not, though, it’s presence is undeniable.

About this title

Review:

Mount Rainier, North America's biggest volcano, looms over Seattle like an invitation to... adventure? Disaster? Discovery? It's all of the above for Bruce Barcott, a Seattle writer who captures the mountain from multiple angles in this luminous biography that defines Rainier's landscape to be like none other on the continent. By turns witty and introspective, Barcott's trip to the top of the glacier-clad peak is filled with history, scientific observation, and a divided personal attachment that struggles to make sense of the mountain and its effect on the surrounding land and people. The Measure of a Mountain is a literate, entertaining view of a totemic Northwest landmark.

From the Inside Flap:

Mount Rainier is the largest and most dangerous volcano in the country, both an awesome natural monument and a formidable presence of peril. In The Measure of a Mountain, Barcott sets out to grasp the spirit of Rainier through a journey along its massive flanks. From forest to precipice, thinning air to fractured glaciers, he explores not only the physique of Rainier but the psychology and meaning of all mountains, and the deep connection that exists between humans and landscape.
Filled with adventure, poignant personal reflections, and fascinating mountain lore told by Indian chiefs, professional guides, priests, and scientists, this book is one man's stirring quest to reconcile with a dazzling creation of nature, at once alluring and sometimes deadly.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sasquatch Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1570615217
• ISBN 13: 9781570615214
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288