In Navigating Rocky Terrain, a nature memoir in essays, Laurie Roath Frazier explores the subterranean in search of footholds to move forward in an ever-changing landscape. The journey begins soon after her mother’s diagnosis of dementia. As Frazier hikes through Canyon Lake Gorge, an enormous scar left behind by a megaflood, questions emerge. What is life like in cracked and disturbed places? How do people and places—plants, animals, and the land—heal following a disturbance? How does life flourish in the shadow of an uncertain future? These questions continue to guide Frazier through the limestone terrain of the Texas Hill Country.
Each essay delves into the geology and ecology of a special place: a gorge, a cave, a sinkhole, a disappearing river—key features in the crumbling spaces, the holes and cracks, of karst terrai
