Читать книгу Shaped by Snow. Defending the Future of Winter онлайн

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The walls of Little Cottonwood are steep and severe. One of my father’s favorite places to rock climb during the summer is the enormous granite slabs on the north side of the canyon. The granite rocks of the Wasatch were formed when intense heat began melting material beneath the surface of the earth forty million years ago. For twenty million years, eruptions hundreds of times larger than those of Mount St. Helens filled in the landscape above the earth’s crust, while below it magma rose but cooled before it reached the surface, crystallizing and creating what are known as igneous intrusions. These intrusions are responsible for many of the igneous rocks in the Wasatch, like quartz monzonite and granite. Because of their light color, they stay cool to the touch even during the hottest times of the year. Whenever my father drives past these slabs, he slides his sunroof open so he can look up at the climbing routes. As his passenger, I hate when he takes his eyes off the road to look at mountains. But as the driver this June day, I lean my head slightly out of the window, trying to spot tiny climbers on the white-and-gray-speckled cliffs.