A collection of essays that paints a progressive view of the American West as seen by a geologist. It traces the geologist's twenty years of living and conducting research in the natural landscapes of the West as she investigates the conflict between environmental history and widely held romanticized views of the region.
"Ellen Wohl has created a masterful and lyrical natural history of the Rocky Mountain West. She writes with a naturalist's attention to detail, an artist's eye for color, a geologist's long view of change, and an activist's passion. Wohl brings a fresh perspective to fundamental issues-grazing, fire, water, restoration, the limits of resilience-and reminds us of the crucial 'connectedness of humans and landscape'."-Stephen Trimble, author of Bargaining for Eden: The Fight for the Last Open Spaces in America
"Ellen Wohl tells stories of the West beyond myth, stories of her own and her students' explorations of the land's dynamic past-into-present. How Americans have settled and used western lands owes much to myths of superabundance and inexhaustibility of a seemingly pristine world. The reality is dynamic change that too often has resulted in contamination and depletion."-Lauret E. Savoy, coeditor of Bedrock: Writers on the Wonders of Geology and The Colors of Nature
"This book has all the qualities to make us appreciate even more the riches nature has to offer."
