Book excerpt: In this paean to the wild lands of the American West, Paul Gruchow celebrates the intrinsic value of places that resist human exploitation. Whether he's rambling through the Minnesota Blue Mounds, spying on migrating cranes in the Nebraska sandhills, lumbering along the Oregon Trail in an old-fashioned wagon train, contemplating the "unearthly spires" of the Dakota Badlands, clambering up Wyoming's Big Horn Mountains, or getting lost in Montana's Beartooth range, Gruchow is an ideal companion, a writer who makes the quirks and curiosities of the natural world come alive.