The Lure Of The Mountains

Lure of the Mountains is about a young man who is fascinated and in awe of the larger than life men of the far mountains. Tragedy strikes his family as they are traveling west and the young man is now free to follow his dreams to become a mountain man. Danger and adventure follow the young man as he struggles to survive when he enters the mountains. As he struggles to survive in the harsh wilderness without being prepared, he luckily befreinds a wounded Indian Warrior and is adopted into the Warrior's tribe. He slowly learns the lessons of survival and is taken in by a mountain man who teaches him to trap and fend for his own. He takes an Indian wife and discovers a love for his family that is as strong as his love for the mountains. They make their home in a high mountain valley, and it's here he enjoys the freedom of the mountains as well as the joy of raising his family.

"Picturesque," "immense," "fantastic," and "sublime" are but a few of the words that early British travelers used to describe the nineteenth-century Rocky Mountain landscape and surrounding terrain. As part of a long tradition of travelers' tales, these British tourists, explorers, adventurers, writers, scientists, artists, missionaries, and merchants all looked for ways to describe and illustrate places they visited--in this instance, the vast and strange wilderness landscape of the North America's Rocky Mountains. Using both published and unpublished resources, Terry Abraham weaves these observations, their aesthetic, and their "Britishness" into a refreshing and unique view of an all-but-vanished "West." In their efforts to make the Rocky Mountain West real to a readership on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, these visitors from two centuries past encouraged a growing realization that this part of the North American landscape was unique, a special part of the world's natural heritage. Many also tried to describe the changes that were being visited on the Rockies by onrushing progress. They were among the first who cautioned against excessive human encroachment on the landscape; in fact, they demonstrated what might be called "environmental pre-awareness." Twenty-first century readers will discover surprising parallels between modern environmental and conservation issues and the concerns expressed by these early travelers from the nineteenth.

McDonald celebrates the high mountain landscapes of the world with a collection of work from leading authors on extreme environments. Ranging in subject from the culture, spirituality, and psychology, the diverse essays here present a thoughtful exploration of the enduring lure of mountains and their wild extremes. Photos.

DECENT PEOPLE. DESPERATE MEASURES. The folks of remote, mountainous Trout Run, New York, are shocked when Mary Pat Sheehan's body is found in her crashed car. They're even more stunned when an autopsy reveals it wasn't the crash that killed her -- but complications from childbirth. No one even knew that cheerful, reliable, and unmarried Mary Pat was pregnant. In a town where everyone knows everyone's business, how did she hide her pregnancy? Where is her baby? And who is the father? These daunting questions lead Police Chief Frank Bennett into the shadowy world of black market adoption scams, where panicked young women and desperate, childless couples play a high-stakes game. to prevent another tragedy, Frank must unravel a tangle of family secrets and unlikely alliances. But stepping closer to the truth puts Frank squarely in a killer's sights. Because when greed and love both fuel the fire, everyone gets burned.