Altitude Adjustment: A Quest for Love, Home, and Meaning in the Tetons

At the age of 39, Mary Beth is starting over. She writes "after a lifetime of yearning to be in the Rockies, I now live in Moose, Wyoming, and hold the keys to Grand Teton National Park in my hand." She has recently divorced from her husband of nearly 15 years and has taken a seasonal summer job as a biologist in the Park. She trained to be a wildlife biologist in college, but heeded the advice of her family to settle down into a marriage in Massachusetts rather than pursue her passion and head west.Mary Beth quickly learns to fit in among the other park workers, the permanent staff as well as the seasonal workers, the locals in the town of Moose, and the rough-hewn nonconformists, and free spirits. On one of her back country surveys with other members of the Park staff, she revels in the beauty and immensity of the natural life around her and writes "I grasp the truth of a premise I've always believed. Place clarifies essence." She is finally where she always wanted to be.Though I've only visited the Tetons once, many of the places she spoke of were familiar, and it's certainly a place I could see myself spending more time - though not those grueling back-country hikes with a 42 lb. pack !The author has a wonderful reverence and curiosity for her surroundings in the mountains - the people, the wild life, the flora and fauna. Her writing is well honed and at times lyrical and poetic. It is clear that she has spent a long time crafting this memoir to perfection, and I certainly hope that "Altitude Adjustment" will be followed by more books !

I first noticed this book while browsing in one of the gift shops during my first visit to Grand Teton National Park. It took me over a year after my visit there to get around to reading it, and I'm so glad I did.Mary Beth is a talented writer, and she managed to blend her personal story with some beautiful and fascinating stories of her adventure as an employee of the national park service, living and working inside the park. I was transported back to my visit there which was a great treat.There's something for everyone in this book - a bit of mid-life crisis, a bit of romance, a character study on some of the people who make their home around the national parks in Wyoming, and some great stories about the park and the wildlife itself. Highly recommended, especially for those of us who dream of "giving it all up" and following our passion to permanently live/work in a beautiful natural area like Mary Beth did.

I really liked this book. I bought it shortly in advance of a trip to Jackson Hole, but wish I had read more of it before the trip. It was fun to read about the places I had just been. She is a very good writer, with an honesty almost to a fault. (In her descriptions of various people in her life, I kept finding myself hoping she had changed the real people's identifying information enough.) Her descriptions of her environment - -the land and animals of the Grand Tetons -- show her obvious love of the area and are a pleasure to read. It is similar to "Wild." If you liked that book you will probably like this, perhaps even more so as she is a more likable persona than the author of Wild, in that her only "mistake" that led her to abandon her former life for this adventure was being married to the wrong person (rather than drugs and affairs). The reader is rooting for her all along to find happiness in love and career.

Altitude. Adjustment. I love this book. Mary Beth's courage to make some major "adjustments" to move from a life lived through other people's perceptions and launch into a life of the unknown--is inspiring and yet, cautionary. She writes honestly about how "following your dream at all costs" -- does have a cost. Mary Beth clearly explains her options: "I didn't want to be forty, fifty, sixty, and still longing for an unlived life. Loneliness, a minister once said, is when we must change and no one else changes with us." The reader is taken on a journey to a place where loneliness and the unknown are no longer things to fear, but to embrace with humor, wisdom, a few scratches, scoundrels and love. Besides being an expert on nature, Mary Beth is also a natural teacher. We learn about the Portuguese language, animal mating styles, and the predatory habits of lonely humans. A wonderful book, especially if you see yourself needing to make a few "attitude" adjustments to open your heart to the exchange rate of the unknown, too.

I read this prior to going to Grand Teton National Park & I really enjoyed seeing all the author talked about. It’s always inspiring to read about courageous non traditional people!

That is an understatement, as this is quite an exciting and fascinating memoir. I love Wyoming and the Tetons and could not put this book down. Anyone who needs to break free to follow a dream would surely be inspired by reading this book. I found it very personal.

This was an intimately written memoir and I enjoyed reading it. As an Ecologist and a neighbor to the north of the Tetons, I shared in much of her wild life experiences. My only complaint was that she seemed not to grasp what I considered "Old Boy" behavior of shutting her out of a permanent Wildlife Biologist position. She excused them by accepting that the work was too physically demanding for a female of her stature. I posit that the work outdoors, as they crafted it, was too demanding for them as well. Perhaps they could work smarter and with more intention. That being said, she crafts a well written environmental story and I hope she continues writing.