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

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

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 weâ€™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 isnâ€™t hidden in clouds. Visible or not, though, itâ€™s presence is undeniable.
Country USA
Brand Sasquatch Books
Manufacturer Sasquatch Books
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 9781570615214
Color Multicolor
ReleaseDate 2007-04-10
UnitCount 1
Format Illustrated
EANs 9781570615214

Country	USA
Brand	Sasquatch Books
Manufacturer	Sasquatch Books
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	9781570615214
Color	Multicolor
ReleaseDate	2007-04-10
UnitCount	1
Format	Illustrated
EANs	9781570615214

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

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