{"product_id":"before-theyre-gone-isbn-9780807001196","title":"Before They're Gone","description":"A longtime backpacker, climber, and skier, Michael Lanza knows our national parks like the back of his hand. As a father, he hopes to share these special places with his two young children. But he has seen firsthand the changes wrought by the warming climate and understands what lies ahead: Alaska’s tidewater glaciers are rapidly retreating, and the abundant sea life in their shadow departs with them. Encroaching tides threaten beloved wilderness coasts like Washington’s Olympic and Florida’s Everglades. Less snowfall and hotter summers will diminish Yosemite’s world-famous waterfalls. And it is predicted that Glacier National Park’s 7,000-year-old glaciers will be gone in a decade.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e To Lanza, it feels like the house he grew up in is being looted. Painfully aware of the ecological—and spiritual—calamity that global warming will bring to our nation’s parks, Lanza sets out to show his children these wonders before they have changed forever.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e He takes his nine-year-old son, Nate, and seven-year-old daughter, Alex, on an ambitious journey to see as many climate-threatened wild places as he can fit into a year: backpacking in the Grand Canyon, Glacier, the North Cascades, Mount Rainier, Rocky Mountain, and along the wild Olympic coast; sea kayaking in Alaska’s Glacier Bay; hiking to Yosemite’s waterfalls; rock climbing in Joshua Tree National Park; cross-country skiing in Yellowstone; and canoeing in the Everglades.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Through these poignant and humorous adventures, Lanza shares the beauty of each place and shows how his children connect with nature when given “unscripted” time. Ultimately, he writes, this is more their story than his, for whatever comes of our changing world, they are the ones who will live in it.Prologue: Inspiration \u003cbr\u003eChapter 1) Deepest Earth \u003cbr\u003eChapter 2) How Does the Water Go Up the Mountain? \u003cbr\u003eChapter 3) The Distant Rumble of White Thunder \u003cbr\u003eChapter 4) In the Long Shadow of “The Mountain” \u003cbr\u003eChapter 5) Along a Wild Coast \u003cbr\u003eChapter 6) The Backbone of the World \u003cbr\u003eChapter 7) If a Tree Falls \u003cbr\u003eChapter 8) Searching for Dr. Seuss \u003cbr\u003eChapter 9) The End of Winter \u003cbr\u003eChapter 10) Going Under \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEpilogue \u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments \u003cbr\u003eSources\"This is a terrific blend of adventure ('Seeing a bison gallop thirty miles an hour—as they can—is like seeing a grand piano suddenly sprout horns and charge you with the speed of a horse.') and ecological forecasting (and forewarning) that aptly conveys the passion of a devoted outdoorsman, and serves as a wake-up call to the state of our planet.\"—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An informative, heartwarming and, at times, heart-stopping read.”—Colleen McBrinn, \u003ci\u003eToday\u003c\/i\u003e’s \u003ci\u003eTravel\u003c\/i\u003e blog\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“The season’s must-read new memoir.”—\u003ci\u003eOutside\u003c\/i\u003e’s \u003ci\u003eRaising Rippers\u003c\/i\u003e blog\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A beautifully written, moving meditation.”—Richard Louv, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Nature Principle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eBefore They're Gone\u003c\/i\u003e is a beautifully written, moving meditation on the meaning of parenthood, our parks, and the first generation of children to grow up in the age of global warming.\"—Richard Louv, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Nature Principle\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eLast Child in the Woods\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Intriguing premise; decent execution—certainly of interest to environmentalists and other eco-minded readers.”—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Review\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Michael Lanza braids a story of family, wilderness, and climate that's at once heartwarming and terrifying. I envy his kids for the incredible year they spent exploring America's finest wild places. And I mourn that they—and my own daughter—will have to endure the devastating consequences of our heating planet. Lanza makes abundantly clear that our children deserve better than the legacy we’re leaving them.”—John Harlin, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Eiger Obsession: Facing the Mountain that Killed My Father\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I grew up in a national park, worked in twelve others and have visited well over two hundred of them. Their values, for people like me, often are taken for granted. In this wonderful book, Michael Lanza’s children learn and experience what is most important about our national parks – the necessity to leave them ‘unimpaired for future generations’ – and why.”—Bill Wade, Chair, Executive Council, Coalition of National Park Service Retirees and former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Delightful … a fresh and engaging way to tell the climate change story.”—Laura Helmuth, senior science editor, \u003ci\u003eSmithsonian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wilderness adventurers like Lanza are the advance scouts of global warming, bringing back firsthand testimony from pristine landscapes that powerfully corroborates what climate scientists are telling us about our changing planet. But this eyewitness report is much more than an impassioned polemic: it’s also an entertaining collection of backcountry anecdotes—surprise encounters with grizzlies, anxious moments on glaciers and wild coastlines, jaw-dropping views from remote summits—that bring climate change to life in a way that’s more palpable and persuasive than any data chart. Above all, \u003ci\u003eBefore They’re Gone\u003c\/i\u003e is a fetching love letter to Mike’s wife, children, and friends and to the wild places he treasures as only a hiker, climber, and explorer can.”—Jonathan Dorn, editor in chief, \u003ci\u003eBackpacker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eMichael Lanza\u003c\/b\u003e is a veteran freelance outdoors writer and photographer. He is the northwest editor of \u003ci\u003eBackpacker\u003c\/i\u003e magazine, where his articles about the impacts of climate change on Montana’s Glacier  National Park and other wild lands helped \u003ci\u003eBackpacker\u003c\/i\u003e win a National Magazine Award. He runs the website TheBigOutside.\u003cb\u003eChapter 6: The Backbone of the World\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAugust 2010\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe hear the menacing snarls and let our eyes trace the sound to its\u003cbr\u003esource. Just a few hundred feet below where we stand at 7,050-foot Lincoln\u003cbr\u003ePass in Montana’s Glacier National Park, two grizzly bear cubs tussle\u003cbr\u003eplayfully where this open, rocky mountainside meets a sparse conifer\u003cbr\u003eforest. Vigilantly close by, their mom vacuums her nose over the ground,\u003cbr\u003esearching for tidbits. A plus-size lady, she has a weight lifter’s physique\u003cbr\u003eatop hips and legs that might cause a self-conscious bear to frown at her\u003cbr\u003ereflection in a lake. But she moves like a four-hundred-pound ballet\u003cbr\u003edancer, hinting at speed and power that we cannot fathom.\u003cbr\u003eSeeing her arouses a feeling so primal that few words even form in\u003cbr\u003eour minds or emerge from our mouths. Our skin prickles, our throats\u003cbr\u003eturn to sandpaper. If we possessed ears that normally drooped down,\u003cbr\u003eat this moment they would stand straight up. If we had the option, we\u003cbr\u003ewould dive without further contemplation into a claustrophobic burrow\u003cbr\u003eand cower for a long time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut we have no burrow. And the bears are just four or five steps off\u003cbr\u003ethe trail we have to descend.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs any backpacker or armchair adventurer understands, this represents\u003cbr\u003ethe worst possible circumstance. A grizzly bear alone might normally\u003cbr\u003eflee from the sounds and odors of humans, probably before the\u003cbr\u003epeople even realized a bear lurked nearby. But other than a polar bear, a griz sow with cubs is arguably the most fearsome, ferocious terrestrial\u003cbr\u003ebeast in the Americas. She may perceive any sizable creature in her vicinity\u003cbr\u003eas a threat to her babies. Every two or three years in the western U.S.\u003cbr\u003eor Canada, a sow horribly mauls or kills some hapless person guilty of\u003cbr\u003eno more than stumbling upon the same patch of earth at exactly the\u003cbr\u003esame moment as her cubs. In July 2011, a sow with cubs killed a 57-yearold\u003cbr\u003eman hiking with his wife in Yellowstone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo we wait, hoping the bears will move on. There is no wind; they\u003cbr\u003emay not smell us. They disappear into the woods, but we periodically\u003cbr\u003ehear their growls, too close to the trail for us to consider venturing down\u003cbr\u003ethere. An hour drips by like candle wax.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThree other hikers, two men and a woman, come along, heading\u003cbr\u003ein our direction. After a brief, lively huddle, we agree on a plan: we will\u003cbr\u003ewalk in close formation down the trail, making abundant noise. Bears,\u003cbr\u003eaccording to conventional thinking, will not engage this large a group\u003cbr\u003eof people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut apparently, these grizzlies did not read the rulebook.\u003cbr\u003eAs we buckle on backpacks, the woman says, gravely, “There are the\u003cbr\u003ebears.” When we look downhill, she clarifies, “No, behind you.”\u003cbr\u003eWe spin around. The sow, not thirty feet away, saunters noiselessly\u003cbr\u003eacross the grassy meadow we’re standing in, her cubs in tow. While we\u003cbr\u003ewere strategizing how to outwit them with our superior intellects, they\u003cbr\u003ehad pulled off a perfect flanking maneuver. From this close, we see her\u003cbr\u003eshoulder muscles rippling, the fur backlit by sunlight, and razor teeth\u003cbr\u003edesigned for tearing through flesh as her mouth gapes open.\u003cbr\u003eThen she sniffs the air and swings her head to stare directly at us.\u003cbr\u003eIf there is a national park that seems created to fulfill the grandest\u003cbr\u003edreams of backpackers, it is Glacier.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStraddling the Continental Divide hard against the Canadian\u003cbr\u003eborder, the northernmost U.S. Rockies resemble a collection of\u003cbr\u003emountain-scale kitchen implements—meat-cleaver wedges of billionyear-\u003cbr\u003eold rock and stone knives lined up in rows that stretch for miles,\u003cbr\u003eeverything standing with blades pointed upward. More than a hundred\u003cbr\u003eof them rise above eight thousand feet, the highest exceeding ten\u003cbr\u003ethousand feet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStreams collect the runoff from fields of melting snow and ice,\u003cbr\u003epouring down mountainsides, shouting loudest when crashing over innumerable\u003cbr\u003ecascades and waterfalls. Late-afternoon sunlight glints off\u003cbr\u003epebbly creeks spilling from lakes, the water’s surface sparkling like diamonds\u003cbr\u003eslowly twisting. Geological strata stripe mountainsides in parallel\u003cbr\u003ebands. Wildflowers in a palette of colors dapple vast, treeless tundra\u003cbr\u003eplateaus.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Blackfoot called these mountains “the backbone of the world.”\u003cbr\u003eThe description fits a place where the land vaults up so dramatically\u003cbr\u003efrom the very edge of the Plains—and where Triple Divide Peak is one\u003cbr\u003eof only two North American mountains that funnel waters to three\u003cbr\u003eoceans: the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSwiss-born paleontologist Louis Agassiz, hailed as one of the greatest\u003cbr\u003escientists of his time, comprehended the origins of places like the\u003cbr\u003efuture Glacier National Park. In the 1840s, he theorized that an ice age\u003cbr\u003ehad once locked up much of the planet. His ideas explained the signs of\u003cbr\u003eglaciers in Europe and North America where they did not exist: ground\u003cbr\u003escraped down to striated bedrock, and massive “glacial-erratic” boulders\u003cbr\u003edeposited in meadows and forests by some mysterious but powerful\u003cbr\u003eforce. Today, a glacier in the north of this park is named for him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe renowned writer George Bird Grinnell, who began lobbying to\u003cbr\u003edesignate the area a national park after visiting in the 1880s, called these\u003cbr\u003emountains “the Crown of the Continent.” The Great Northern Railway,\u003cbr\u003ehoping to bring in paying tourists, dubbed the area “Little Switzerland.”\u003cbr\u003eBut in one important aspect, it differed from the Swiss Alps as much\u003cbr\u003eas Central Park from the Serengeti: unlike the settled Alpine valleys and\u003cbr\u003emountainside meadows, the Northern Rockies were an intact, pristine\u003cbr\u003ewilderness. Today, some 90 percent of the park’s million acres remain\u003cbr\u003einaccessible except to those willing to explore on foot.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGlacier is among just a few U.S. wild lands outside of Alaska that\u003cbr\u003ehost a nearly complete array of the continent’s native megafauna. Only\u003cbr\u003etwo are missing: the bison and woodland caribou. Sixty-two mammal\u003cbr\u003especies live here, and 260 kinds of birds are seen. Glacier and neighboring\u003cbr\u003eWaterton Lakes National Park in Canada have been designated\u003cbr\u003ean international peace park, an international biosphere reserve, and a\u003cbr\u003eWorld Heritage Site.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA backpacker on any of the park’s more than seven hundred miles\u003cbr\u003eof trails may lose count of how many times she sees cliff-scaling, bearded\u003cbr\u003emountain goats. Many backpackers go home with breathless tales of\u003cbr\u003ewalking past that most regal of creatures, the bighorn sheep. Some—like\u003cbr\u003emy friend Geoff Sears when we took a trip here together—tell of leaving\u003cbr\u003ea sweaty T-shirt hanging outside to dry overnight, only to discover it\u003cbr\u003eeven more soaked in the morning because deer have gummed it for the\u003cbr\u003esalt from perspiration. Hikers in early fall might hear bull elk bugle or\u003cbr\u003esee two bull moose clashing massive antlers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEncounters with black or grizzly bears—both number in the hundreds\u003cbr\u003ehere—occur rarely, for one simple reason: a bear will usually detect\u003cbr\u003ethe humans first and avoid them. This dynamic undoubtedly serves\u003cbr\u003ethe interests of both parties. A bear attacking people ultimately loses, as\u003cbr\u003epark officials will destroy it. And no one with a healthy attitude toward\u003cbr\u003elife wants to cross paths with a grizzly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Lewis and Clark explored the American West, the grizzly\u003cbr\u003enumbered an estimated 50,000 and ranged over two-thirds of the contiguous\u003cbr\u003eUnited States, from the Canadian border to Mexico to Ohio.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile more numerous in Canada and Alaska, about 1,400 remain in\u003cbr\u003ethe Lower 48, and they live only where humans tolerate them. More\u003cbr\u003ethan seven hundred bears dwell in Glacier and the surrounding national\u003cbr\u003eforests, and another six hundred in Greater Yellowstone. Small, at-risk\u003cbr\u003epopulations hang on in remote mountains in Washington, northern\u003cbr\u003eIdaho, and northwestern Montana.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo other species in North America shapes our perception of wilderness\u003cbr\u003eas definitively as the grizzly. There are wild lands with grizzlies, and\u003cbr\u003ethere are those without, and they are as far apart in our minds as terror\u003cbr\u003eis from thrill.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere they live, we enter the woods with a heightened alertness.\u003cbr\u003eEvery dense copse of spruce trees or tall bushes potentially harbors a\u003cbr\u003emenace. Come upon a steaming pile of scat the size of a soccer ball, and\u003cbr\u003eyou will wonder which direction the bear went and which you should\u003cbr\u003ego. We are not so far evolved from our hunter-gatherer ancestors to have\u003cbr\u003elost our innate aversion to being eaten.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEncounter a great bear close up and, regardless of how you had planned to react, you may find yourself overwhelmed by one instinctive\u003cbr\u003ethought: flee. You backpedal, maybe stumble. You might reach for the\u003cbr\u003epepper spray on your belt or forget it’s there. You know in your bones\u003cbr\u003ethat you possess little control over what happens next.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTerror hits hard right in the gut and takes the wind out of you. I\u003cbr\u003eknow, because I’ve felt it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen that sow grizzly and her cubs crept up so stealthily behind\u003cbr\u003emy friend Jerry Hapgood and me at Lincoln Pass on that late-summer\u003cbr\u003emorning, she not only Tasered us with one of the biggest, voice-seizing\u003cbr\u003efrights of our lives; she also clarified an unsettling truth: when you walk\u003cbr\u003ethrough country inhabited by grizzly bears, you see and hear them\u003cbr\u003eeverywhere—except the ones that are actually right on top of you. To\u003cbr\u003eour good fortune and vast relief, that sow and her cubs merely continued\u003cbr\u003eon their way, giving us no more than a glance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, eleven months later, I’m backpacking that same trail in Glacier\u003cbr\u003ewith my wife and children, on another perfect summer day in\u003cbr\u003emountains carved from glaciers but designed in dreams.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd I am thinking about bears.","brand":"Beacon Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302548885733,"sku":"NP9780807001196","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780807001196.jpg?v=1767722369","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/before-theyre-gone-isbn-9780807001196","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}