Rising from the Plains Quotes

“Everything depended on geology. Any damn fool could see that the vegetation was directly responsive to the bedrock. Hence birds and wildlife were responsive to it. We were responsive to it. In winter, our life was governed by where the wind blew, where snow accumulated. We could see that these natural phenomena were not random—that they were controlled, that there was a system.”
― John McPhee, Rising from the Plains

“The event is known in geology as the Laramide Orogeny. Alternatively it is called the Laramide Revolution.”
― John McPhee, Rising from the Plains

“This is the only place in the whole Rocky Mountain front where you can go from the Great Plains to the summit of the mountains without snaking your way up a mountain face or going through a tunnel. This one feature had more to do with the building of the West than any other factor. I don’t diminish the importance of the Oregon Trail, but here you had everything going for you. This point hasn’t been made before.”
― John McPhee, Rising from the Plains