Book Review - Rising from the Plains

On the recent trip to Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks, I picked up Rising from the Plains by one of my favorite geology writers, John McPhee. The story begins by the telling of a school teacher moving from New England to the plains of Wyoming in the dawn of the 1900s. There she meets, and eventually marries, a rancher and naturalist who is none other than the cousin of John Muir. Eventually, the couple have several children, one of whom is David Love, the pre-eminent geologist for the state of Wyoming.

Throughout the book, McPhee recounts the tale of Love's parents' experience living and raising his family on the plains, and his introduction to the field of geology and its influence on his life, as toured and investigated with Love himself. The book also raises some moral and ethical dilemmas faced by geologists today, in their struggle to preserve nature, while at the same time endorsing its development. A somewhat lighthearted and entertaining read, compared with some of his other writings, Rising from the Plains weaves a tale of life in the Old West and a love of the land, with a look into the natural forces that created what we now see amid this section of the Rocky Mountain chain. Available on Amazon.com.