SOURCE: A review of Winter: Notes from Montana, in Sierra, Vol. 76, No. 5, September, 1991, p. 120.

Lyon offers a favorable appraisal of Winter: Notes from Montana, in the review below.

Winter: Notes from Montana offers good evidence that the Yaak country in northwestern Montana has, in John Muir’s phrase, “grown into” Rick Bass. A Texan who went to college in Utah, Bass then took a job in Mississippi, only to find that the summons of the mountains had become insistent. When the settling urge came to him, his compass pointed wild and north. He and his friend (now wife) Elizabeth determined, after much searching, that the Yaak River Valley was right. Winter tells the story of slowing down, learning the ropes, committing.

At first came almost a frenzy of preparation: Winter on the Yaak is serious, and the couple had arrived late (in September). By February much wood had...