Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier

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.