Photographs and text depict the Rocky Mountains from the southern Rockies in New Mexico to the northernmost part of the range in British Columbia

The Rockies: Pillars of a Continent

Arts & Photography

Thybony, Scott

Chesley, Paul

Photography & Video

Natl Geographic Society

History

Americas

Exploring America''s Historic Places takes th e reader on an odyssey through time and across the continent , revisiting the great places, monuments and people that con tributed to the nation''s history. '

Exploring America's Historic Places

Allen, Leslie

Kostyal, K.M.

national-geographic-society-u-s

Exploring America''s Historic Places takes th e reader on an odyssey through time and across the continent , revisiting the great places, monuments and people that con tributed to the nation''s history. '

In Navajo country, where the land is thick with legends and forgotten histories, a writer sets out to find a place that no longer exists except on a few old maps: Burntwater.The story opens when two friends get stuck in a remote pocket of the desert as a winter storm moves in. They are taking a wandering route across the Four Corners region, curving through Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona on a long arc into the mythic heart of the country.As they travel, the author calls up past experiences in this land where the past flows seamlessly into the present. He remembers a medicine man whose chanting could start the cold engine of a Volkswagen. He describes an act of sabotage against an oil company by two Vietnam vets armed with deer rifles. He recalls how a winter of herding sheep for a Navajo family and a search for a Hopi known as the Sun Chief led him further into a human landscape as strange and compelling as the terrain.This book takes the backroads, crossing the Colorado Plateau from the headwaters of the Virgin River to the mouth of the Dirty Devil, from the badlands below Twin Angels to a remote mesa in Bandelier. As the miles go by and the stories unfold, there is a growing sense of mystery, of words not spoken, of messages carried on the wind.Reaching the Shrine of the Stone Lions, the writer recounts a near-fatal descent into the Grand Canyon where he finds a way to reconnect with the beauty of life. There his journey ends with an emotional punch that goes straight to the mind and the heart.

Burntwater

University of Arizona Press

In Navajo country, where the land is thick with legends and forgotten histories, a writer sets out to find a place that no longer exists except on a few old maps: Burntwater. The story opens when two friends get stuck in a remote pocket of the desert as a winter storm moves in. They are taking a wandering route across the Four Corners region, curving through Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona on a long arc into the mythic heart of the country. As they travel, the author calls up past experiences in this land where the past flows seamlessly into the present. He remembers a medicine man whose chanting could start the cold engine of a Volkswagen. He describes an act of sabotage against an oil company by two Vietnam vets armed with deer rifles. He recalls how a winter of herding sheep for a Navajo family and a search for a Hopi known as the Sun Chief led him further into a human landscape as strange and compelling as the terrain. This book takes the backroads, crossing the Colorado Plateau from the headwaters of the Virgin River to the mouth of the Dirty Devil, from the badlands below Twin Angels to a remote mesa in Bandelier. As the miles go by and the stories unfold, there is a growing sense of mystery, of words not spoken, of messages carried on the wind. Reaching the Shrine of the Stone Lions, the writer recounts a near-fatal descent into the Grand Canyon where he finds a way to reconnect with the beauty of life. There his journey ends with an emotional punch that goes straight to the mind and the heart.

Dry Rivers and Standing Rocks: A Word Finder for the American West

Reference

Dictionaries & Thesauruses

Univ of New Mexico Pr

All writers get stuck looking for the right word. Noticing that this was an acute problem for writers in the West because standard thesauruses face east, Scott Thybony started a file of western words. Sorting through spoken and written texts, he looked, as he puts it, for "grounded talk," "place-linked words, both rooted and wind-blown." He ended up with a list of western place names, cowboyisms, American Indian words on permanent loan, Spanish terms, a sprinkling of Arabic, some scientific terms, and an assortment of random coinings, borrowings, and outright expropriations. Soon this evolved from a computer file to the book he calls Dry Rivers and Standing Rocks and describes as "something resembling a thesaurus of western geography." 
Dry Rivers and Standing Rocks is full of information but it's not really a reference book. It reads like poetry. But you don't need to be a writer to appreciate it. Readers, teachers, hikers, cartographers, even crossword puzzlers will love this book. Neither scholarly nor comprehensive, it's a collection to make you think. It contains paired words like standing rock, grafts like snaggletooth, loners like hoodoo. It recharges the familiar in focusing on a word like yonder, which the author describes poignantly as "compressing the history of the West into a single longing." 
"Thybony's word finder for the American West functions as a cultural lens. Through it, all Americans can find the way we have been using the language and also the way we might use the language. I'm not sure any book can have a higher purpose."--James R. Hepworth

University of New Mexico Press

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press The significance of the Medicine Bow region is tied to its abundant natural resources in close proximity to majore 19th century migration routes. The high mountain lakes and streams, rugged rocky peaks and endless vistas of forest remain popular with outdoorsmen who travel from afar to enjoy the unsullied natural world that still remains there.

The Medicine Bows: Wyoming's Mountain Country

Rosenberg, Robert G.

Caxton Press

This collection is put together like a National Geographic magazine, with the stories all focusing on the 130,000-square-mile wilderness dubbed "the Great Unknown" by Major John Wesley Powell in 1869. Now shared by Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona, this area includes dazzling mesas and buttes, soaring stone pinnacles and arches, and daunting deep canyons and cliffs. Presented in the magazine's personalized reporting style with National Geographic's infamous color photos, this is a book worth having if you're headed to these parks--or have good memories of a visit there. A 16-page special section covers the diversity of plants and animals in the area.

Canyon Country Parklands: Treasures of the Great Plateau

Travel

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Thybony, Scott. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Thybony, Scott

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Thybony, Scott. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Rockies: Pillars of a Continent

The Rockies: Pillars of a Continent

Exploring America's Historic Places

Exploring America's Historic Places

Burntwater

Burntwater

Dry Rivers and Standing Rocks: A Word Finder for the American West

Dry Rivers and Standing Rocks: A Word Finder for the American West

The Medicine Bows: Wyoming's Mountain Country

Canyon Country Parklands: Treasures of the Great Plateau