In the Spring of 1986, Jim Carrier, the Denver Post's "Rocky Mountain Ranger, traveled to Yellowstone National Park to begin a series of seventy dispatches about the park's human and natural history. He admits he knew almost nothing about Yellowstone. Seven months later, after countless interviews, miles hiked, driven and paddled, time often shared with his daughter, Amy, he came home transformed. More than a "reporter's notebook" Carrier's letters reveal the impact the region had on him over the course of Yellowstone's four seasons. Whether hiking through grizzly country at night in search of medical help for a gravely ill colleague, or challenging the Grand Teton, Carrier's adventures will convince you that he was hardly a dispassionate correspondent. His letters demonstrate that the value of places such as Yellowstone may lie in the ways they transform all of us into more conscientious defender of the wild.