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America's West stands above it's East. That's not metaphor, it is geophysical reality. [We might just as easily make the same statement more sweeping -- it is true of the America's as a whole.] There lies a blurred meridian down the center of the North American continent. To the east are green-shaded lands that generally lie below 500 meters in elevation above sea level. To the west, the earth swells upward to the 14,000 foot summits of the Rocky Mountains, the 14,000 foot summits of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the 14,000 foot summits of the Cascade Mountains. The Coast Ranges top out above 11,500 feet in southern California, and at a lofty 19,850 feet in the Yukon. In the Alaska Range, at 20,320 feet, Denali stands atop the continent. Yes, the West is high (the mean elevation of the state of Wyoming is 6700 feet/2042 m). It's also big. Between California's Mexican border and it's northern boundary lies the better part of 1000 miles. British Columbia is more than twice as large as California (and is likely the richest, most spectacular piece of real estate it's size on planet Earth). Alaska -- its very name, the "great land", seems to exemplify our terrestrial concepts of vastness. From New Mexico to Alaska's Brooks Range, the Rocky Mountains stretch for thousands of miles. In all the world, only the Andes are a longer chain of mountains. Further west, the Hawaiian Islands, the world's most distinct and longest island chain, extend more than 1500 miles from the Big Island to the last atoll west of Midway.

high country: random photos of western mountains, clockwise from above left: Mt Shasta, California; Hazelton Range, British Columbia; Summit County, Colorado; Glacier NP, Montana.

The West is big, high, and largely -- dry. Long "rain shadows" stretch eastward from the mountains. The green-tones of America's East are easily appreciated. The golden earth-tones of the West may seem repugnant to individuals with an undeveloped sense of land aesthetic. Of course the greens are here too (especially in the Northwest), but the predominance is earthen, ochre hues. Here is a silent, stoic beauty that seems to resist the giddy excesses of our self-obsessed culture, which is dedicated blindly to acquisition, consumption, expansion, and waste. Yet these most rugged and arid places are surprisingly vulnerable to human imprudence. The biota of these lands is at once common and rare; robust and fragile. Some species have highly restricted habitat, many are perfectly designed for their particular niche. Witness the creosote bush, Larrea tridentata, the most common of southwestern desert shrubs, it will live for a century, but before dying some Larrea clone themselves and ultimately live for thousands of years. These, and many other dry-earth plants have a unique beauty and function that escapes most people who "see" them.

above: Coast Mountains north of Whistler, BC. Mexican Hat Rock, Utah. Teewinot and Mt. Moran, Wyoming. below: Mountain landscapes in Alberta (left) and Utah (right).

above: 4,000 year old Bristlecone pine at 11,500 feet in California's White Mountains. Taos Pueblo, NM, the site of longest continued human habitation in the western hemisphere. In Rio Grande whitewater, northern New Mexico.

When I first created a web site several years ago, it was in part inspired by my reading of Wallace Stegner's two autobiographical, historical, and analytical books exposing what it means to live in the West, i.e., western North America (more accurately -- what it means to one interested in understanding the West). Click on either "Wolf Willow" or "Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs" (at right) to see my reviews of these and other books.

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above: Mt. Baker, Washington. A view from near Abbotsford, BC. below: north rim of the Grand Canyon, Arizona.