What is it like to become obsessed with a mountain?
In The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier,
Bruce Barcott describes how he circled the mountain on foot and
interviewed mountaineers, climbing guides, priests, historians and
scientists before he and his father attempted to scale the
country’s highest volcano. Barcott, a Seattle-based writer, takes a
critical view of the mountaineering subculture, one that can be
ruthless in its quest for dangerous peak experiences. Suffering in
the pursuit of peaks isn’t noble, he concludes: “Sometimes
suffering in the wilderness is just suffering in the wilderness and
the only knowledge you gain is the knowledge that you don’t want to
do it again.” Barcott concludes that Rainier’s power comes not from
its 25 glaciers and daunting summit but from its commanding
presence on the Puget Sound horizon. “Mount Rainier does not exist
under our feet,” he writes, “Mount Rainier lives in our minds.”
Sasquatch Books, 615 2nd Ave., Suite 260,
Seattle, WA 98104-2200. $23.95 hardcover, 288
pages.
* Sara
Phillips
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline In search of Mount Rainier’s power.
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