Under the Mae West Peaks: Nature, and a Cowboy Year in a Last Wild Place
A celebration of the land—and a quiet call to save it.
Under the Mae West Peaks: Nature, and a Cowboy Year in a Last Wild Place follows a year of ranch life and close observation in the rugged country beneath Arizona’s Mae West Peaks. Part nature writing, part cowboy memoir, it traces the rhythms of weather, animals, work, solitude, and survival in a landscape where beauty and hardship still arrive together.
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“Perhaps the most original book about Southwestern birds, ecology, and ranching that you will ever find… a long lyrical poem to place and the power of place.”
— Sharman Apt Russell, author of Diary of a Citizen Scientist
About Cirque Author — Woody Hume
Woody Hume grew up on a Quaker farm “Back East,” where horses, birds, wildflowers, and walks to “look for signs of Spring” shaped his love of the natural world. A career in botany took him through the equatorial world and to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where he completed a thesis on tropical ethnobotany for Friends World College. In Costa Rica, he was drawn into ranch life, horses, criollo cattle, and rainforest country. He later left academia for the Western Range, working from camp cook helper to horse wrangler to cow herd boss. He now writes from an old ranch headquarters, looking out over pastures and mountains.