Exceptional Mountains - by O Alan Weltzien (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Over the past 150 years, people have flocked to the Pacific Northwest in increasing numbers, in part due to the region's beauty and one of its most exceptional features: volcanoes. This segment of the Pacific Ring of Fire has shaped not only the physical landscape of the region but also the psychological landscape, and with it the narratives we compose about ourselves. Exceptional Mountains is a cultural history of the Northwest volcanoes and the environmental impact of outdoor recreation in this region. It probes the relationship between these volcanoes and regional identity, particularly in the era of mass mountaineering and population growth in the Northwest. O. Alan Weltzien demonstrates how mountaineering is but one conspicuous example of the outdoor recreation industry's unrestricted and problematic growth. He explores the implications of our assumptions that there are no limits to our outdoor recreation habits and that access to the highest mountains should include amenities for affluent consumers. Each chapter probes the mountain-based regional ethos and the concomitant sense of privilege and entitlement from different vantages to illuminate the consumerist mind-set as a reductive--and deeply problematic--version of experience and identity in and around some of the nation's most striking mountains"--

Book Synopsis

Over the past 150 years, people have flocked to the Pacific Northwest in increasing numbers, in part due to the region's beauty and one of its most exceptional features: volcanoes. This segment of the Pacific Ring of Fire has shaped not only the physical landscape of the region but also the psychological landscape, and with it the narratives we compose about ourselves. Exceptional Mountains is a cultural history of the Northwest volcanoes and the environmental impact of outdoor recreation in this region. It probes the relationship between these volcanoes and regional identity, particularly in the era of mass mountaineering and population growth in the Northwest.

O. Alan Weltzien demonstrates how mountaineering is but one conspicuous example of the outdoor recreation industry's unrestricted and problematic growth. He explores the implications of our assumptions that there are no limits to our outdoor recreation habits and that access to the highest mountains should include amenities for affluent consumers. Each chapter probes the mountain-based regional ethos and the concomitant sense of privilege and entitlement from different vantages to illuminate the consumerist mind-set as a reductive--and deeply problematic--version of experience and identity in and around some of the nation's most striking mountains.

Review Quotes

"Exceptional Mountains touches on many of the issues in the Northwest that also are confronting our national parks."--Kurt Repanshek, National Parks Traveler-- (9/20/2016 12:00:00 AM)

"As a call to action Weltzien's book is motivating and recommended reading for wilderness resource managers and users, especially climbers."--Jeff L. Smoot, Western American Literature

"I heartily recommend Exceptional Mountains to anyone interested in how we interact with our wild places."--David Abrams, Quivering Pen-- (8/15/2016 12:00:00 AM)

"Open[s] up new approaches to mountain literature, where historical, environmental, commercial, and literary viewpoints make clearer why and how we have sanctified these high-altitude monuments. You won't hike or look at these mountains again in the same way after reading this remarkable book."--Bill Lang, author of Confederacy of Ambition: William Winlock Miller and the Making of Washington Territory-- (9/15/2015 12:00:00 AM)

"Outdoorspeople will likely find much in Exceptional Mountains that will help them rethink their outdoor experiences. Likewise, anyone interested in understanding regional American identity, park management, and changing uses of wilderness will find stories of interest."--Rachel S. Gross, H-Environment

"Part environmental humanities treatise and part memoir, Weltzien's study illuminates the cultural meaning of mountain wilderness."--Scott Slovic, coeditor of Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and Culture
-- (9/15/2015 12:00:00 AM)

"The book is strong in its examination of cultural attitudes and informative in its history of mass mountain sports. . . . Weltzien articulates well the attraction of the mountains and the threat that very attraction brings."--Judy Bentley, Pacific Historical Review

"To live under the volcano with Weltzien is to hike, sometimes anxiously, through fields of sociology, tourism, urban planning, and ecology--then to pause to contemplate lava domes, landscape painting, and indoor climbing walls. A book to engage both climbers and watchers."--Laurie Ricou, author of The Arbutus/Madrone Files: Reading the Pacific Northwest-- (9/15/2015 12:00:00 AM)

About the Author

O. Alan Weltzien is a professor of English at the University of Montana-Western. He has published many books, including a memoir and two books of poetry, and is the editor of The Norman Maclean Reader.