Teewinot

Bursting with a sense of place, Turner's earnest journal of a year spent in Grand Teton National Park, where he works as a mountain guide, is a rewarding reading experience replete with ravishing observations of nature. From his Wyoming cabin, he looks out on majestic Mount Teewinot (the name comes from a Shoshone word meaning ""many pinnacles""). He counts among his ""Thoreauvian neighbors"" deer, ospreys, great blue herons and porcupines, as well as moose that occasionally sleep on his porch. ""We are a guild, our labor a craft,"" he declares, referring to fellow guides and park rangers who come together three or four months each year, united by a love of mountains and the West. Turner, a seasoned mountaineer who has led expeditions to India, Tibet and China, and has taught philosophy, takes us on exhilarating climbs, including one to the summit of the Grand Teton, as he casually drops apt references to Sartre, Rilke, Wittgenstein, Matthew Arnold, Chinese painting, Buddhist chants, Zen poems. But this is no Shangri-La. Illegal snowmobilers and poachers abound; ""extreme skiers"" and ""extreme snowboarders"" keep rescuers and medics busy. Turner himself lives on the edge--just half a mile from an active geologic fault capable of triggering a 7.5-magnitude earthquake tomorrow. A passionate conservationist, he bemoans the frazzled state of this ""most compromised park in the national park system,"" a sanctuary littered with hunters, a major airport, motorboats with no speed limits. Highlighting the fate of the vanishing grizzly bear, he makes a compelling plea for preservation of ""wild forms of being,"" and envisions a respectful covenant between people and wild animals such as mountain lions and wolves. Photos not seen by PW. (June)