Navigating Rocky Terrain: Caves, Karsts, and the Soul of Unseen Spaces

In Navigating Rocky Terrain, a nature memoir in essays, Laurie Roath Frazier explores the subterranean in search of footholds, places to move forward in an ever-changing landscape. The journey begins soon after her mother's dementia diagnosis. As she 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 her 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 terrain. Along the way, she meets scientists, cavers, Master Naturalists, and other citizen scientists who lend their voices to the stories. Together, they delve into ecological issues including extreme weather events, habitat fragmentation, land use, population growth, water conservation, invasive species, and dark sky initiatives.

These curiosity-driven, hopeful essays examine how we begin to heal, personally and ecologically. While writing, Laurie Roath Frazier experiences illness, a pandemic, and the death of loved ones, including both of her parents. In response, she sets out on a mini-expedition, close to home: She searches for caves on a thirty-acre family property and makes plans to restore the land. As she encounters karst, above and below, its stories intertwine with her own stories of loss and change. Ultimately, the journey uncovers the complex connections that exist between the surface and the subterranean and that also exist in the landscape of a human being.