Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #394557 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-09
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Amazon.com
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 Library Journal
A Seattle journalist sets out to write a natural history of Mt. Rainier in Washington State but finds that it is a truth universally acknowledged that a man interested in mountains must want to climb to the top. While researching the mountain, Barcott happened to interview Scott Fischer, a climbing guide who shortly afterward perished in a sensationalized accident on Mt. Everest (see Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, LJ 4/1/97). Trying to make sense of Fischer's death turns the story from a standard natural history into a distinctly anti-macho example of mountaineering literature, as a bookish, gregarious man without any natural daredevil impulses contemplates climbing (or possibly not climbing) the 14,410'. peak. A darkly humorous review of mountaineering memoirs notes that "once an author is on the mountain, there's no limit to what he'll suffer for his reader," but that "unlike any other sport, mountaineering demands that its players die." Although the anecdotes about Mt. Rainier will be of regional interest, this appealing adventure story about a reluctant adventurer will please many readers.?Amy Brunvand, Univ. of Utah Lib., Salt Lake City
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
A marvelous biography of Mt. Rainier--public symbol, sacred icon, towering Seattle presence, even when lost behind a vaporous haze--from Barcott, a staff writer for the Seattle Weekly and contributor to Harper's. At 14,410 feet, Rainier is the highest and most dangerous volcano in the US, its summit area mimicking frigid Himalayan weather conditions. Like many Seattlites, Barcott is caught in Rainier's clutches. He circumambulates it, nibbling at the flanks; ascends through alpine meadows, from one opaque cloud bank to the next, as if ``approaching the gates of heaven.'' He gets down on his knees to scrutinize the snow flea and consider the harvestermen (a.k.a. daddy longlegs) that, astonishingly, live at 10,000 feet; takes to the mountain at night under a candent moon, the glaciers luminous. He listens to the radical silence, bathes in the spectacular eight-week run of wildflowers: avalanche lily, paintbrush, yellowdot saxifrage, salal (which, Barcott tells us, the poet Richard Hugo said was one of the few words he loved enough to own). At full spate, Barcott writes with elegance, both thoughtful and waggish, and he has a way of making the most mundane matters--seismological readouts, say, or the marmot's daily routine--utterly absorbing. There are moments when you will guffaw out loud; at other times you will gasp or spill a tear over stories of those who have died on the mountain. Last comes the author's summit push with his father, a hellacious experience, Barcott's ``legs trembling like sinners before God'': perhaps a test of courage, a bow to curiosity, but also ``the stupidest thing I've ever done.'' ``We want to know mountains. . . . but they've got no story . . . We throw ourselves onto them and make the stories happen.'' Barcott knows his mountain, and his story is enthralling, respectful, bitingly witty, and wise. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Just another "environmental " "journalist"
The one star is for having the nerve to call Michael Crichton's State of Fear "a horrible anti-science potboiler, which was easily the worst book I read all year".

No desire to vist Ranier after this
After slogging through this overwritten and overwrought account of the author's obsession with Mr. Rainier, I lost what little interest I had in ever visiting the place. The mountain is painted as dreary and gray, with grimy little spots of human encroachment. The only moderately interesting part of the book are the chapters on the Himalayas and high altitude climbing, which, if Barcott stayed on point, would not even be in the book. No wonder his girlfriend got fed up with him; he is not just a bore, he is a bore with an ill-defined and pointless obsession.

My Favorite Book Ever
I think if I were stranded on a deserted island, I would want a copy of this book as well as all those Dostoevsky's I've always promised myself I would read one day. Being an avid climber, this is probably my favorite book of all times, and the book I am always sure to purchase as a gift for others to enjoy. This is NOT a climbing guide or a book just for the climbing community (although we love it). This is a book for anyone who loves the Pacific Northwest, mountains, mountain weather, great stories of adventure and tragedy, geology, hight altitude bugs, plants, animals, and good humor. Each chapter unfolds an entire diverse topic. You'll find yourself going back and reading your favorite chapters.