Rising from the Plains

This is an article about high-country geology and a Rocky Mountain regional geologist. The writer makes a point of mentioning this in the beginning so that the reader won't feel misled by an opening passage in which a slim young woman who is not in any sense a geologist steps down from a train in Rawlins, Wyoming, in order to go north by stagecoach into country that was still very much the Old West. ‍ This is how John McPhee's Rising from the Plains begins. If you enjoy reading about geology, this is a fantastic place to start. If, on the other hand, you're not interested in the science's spatial intricacies, you can lose out on a richness of human history that exists within the layers presented.