Puzzles, Mysteries, and Reviews

Just in time for summer's backpacking and camping season, The Last Season has arrived in paperback. I reviewed this book a year ago shortly after it hit the market in a hardcover-edition and it's well-worth your time if you like a true-life mystery involving a legendary backcountry ranger in Kings Canyon National Park.

Most of us, I think, envision the creation of national parks as a process intended to preserve spectacular beauty or a poignant moment in history for today and tomorrow. And while the Blue Ridge Parkway does indeed freeze a pastoral moment in Appalachian history, the impetus behind the highway was not so altruistic, as Ms. Whisnant's narrative points out.

Though I'm only a rough handful of pages into the book, there are several passages that resonated with me when I think of the current battles facing the national park system. Let me leave them with you to ponder this long weekend:

Clearly written and beautifully illustrated with color photographs of the canyon and maps and diagrams explaining the geologic forces at work, the book is not a heavy, geologic treatise. Rather, it entices one into turning the pages via a conversational tone, much as if you were standing on the South Rim discussing the canyon face-to-face with Ranney.

One of the most direct books I've read on avoiding bears in the backcountry is Dave Smith's Backcountry Bear Basics, which just came out in its second edition.