{"id":2320,"date":"2019-10-27T21:51:42","date_gmt":"2019-10-28T01:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=2320"},"modified":"2026-04-26T14:16:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T18:16:06","slug":"bucks-peak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/bucks-peak\/","title":{"rendered":"Buck&#8217;s Peak: Why Tara Westover Escaped the Mountain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Where is Buck&#8217;s Peak? What was <em>Educated<\/em> author Tara Westover&#8217;s life there like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Buck&#8217;s Peak is a remote mountain in Franklin County, Idaho and childhood home of author Tara Westover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Growing up in Buck&#8217;s Peak, Westover experienced more than just ideological extremism. Her parents\u2019 beliefs had real-world consequences for the children, which frequently put Tara and her siblings in grave danger. Whether it was through near-death experiences in car crashes or maimings in the junkyard where her father Gene forced his children to work, it was a constant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/struggle-to-survive\/\">struggle for survival<\/a> on Buck\u2019s Peak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-growing-up-on-buck-s-peak\">Growing up on Buck&#8217;s Peak<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tara Westover was one of seven children born into a family of hardline, anti-government survivalists <\/strong>who lived on a remote mountain in rural Idaho, Buck\u2019s Peak. A Mormon fundamentalist, her father was an adherent (and active promoter) of an extreme ideology that welded together strands from the militia, anti-vaccination, and evangelical Christian movements.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His adherence to these views subjected his family to a number of privations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Tara was born at home and didn\u2019t see a doctor or nurse until her adulthood.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>She didn\u2019t attend any school growing up, public or private.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>She didn\u2019t have a birth certificate, and the state of Idaho had no official record of her existence until she was issued a Delayed Certificate of Birth at the age of nine.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-voice-of-god-on-buck-s-peak\"><strong>The Voice of God<\/strong> on Buck&#8217;s Peak<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The family lived at the base of Buck\u2019s Peak, a mountain in Franklin County, Idaho. Her father, Gene, had free rein to impose his beliefs on the rest of the family from this remote, isolated location, free from interference (or intervention) from the outside world.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Shortform note: Westover has changed the names of the principal characters in the book, since they are real people, many of whom vigorously contest the version of events that she presents. As the reader, we only know these individuals by the names she assigns to them.)<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gene\u2019s family had been living on the mountain for over 50 years, but his own siblings had long since moved away by the time Tara was born in 1986. He had a contentious relationship with his own mother, whom Tara knew as \u201cGrandma-down-the-hill\u201d and who lived (as her nickname would suggest) just down the hill from Tara\u2019s immediate family. She did <em>not <\/em>share her son\u2019s hardline beliefs and <strong>frequently clashed with him over his refusal to send his children to school<\/strong>.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Gene was a religious fundamentalist<\/strong>, who believed that he could communicate directly with God and who took the text of the Holy Bible and the Book of Mormon literally. He once forced the family to purge their refrigerator of dairy products and brought home 50 gallons of honey in his truck. He had done this because he had read in the Book of Isaiah, \u201cButter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.\u201d He believed that God was telling him dairy was evil and honey was good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-herbal-remedies-at-buck-s-peak\"><strong>Herbal Remedies<\/strong> at Buck&#8217;s Peak<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Gene believed that the \u201cMedical Establishment\u201d injected brainwashing drugs into people\u2019s bodies. <\/strong>As a result, he refused to let the children go to the doctor, even when they sustained grievous injuries working in his junkyard or when they got debilitatingly sick.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was another outgrowth of his religious fundamentalism. Gene insisted that God had provided all the medicine that anyone would ever need in the form of natural herbs and oils which could be manufactured and administered right in the home on Buck\u2019s Peak. Indeed, <strong>he would come to refer to these remedies as \u201cGod\u2019s Pharmacy.\u201d<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His wife Faye acted as the family\u2019s primary medical caregiver, concocting homeopathic remedies for the children. <strong>Tara and her siblings were treated with their mothers\u2019 herbal mixtures of calendula, lobelia, and witch hazel.<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-tyler-escapes-buck-s-peak\">Tyler Escapes Buck&#8217;s Peak<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>One of Tara&#8217;s brothers, Tyler, had always been different. He was intellectually curious, studious, and enjoyed reading books. His demeanor and interests set him apart from his more rough-and-tumble brothers, whom Tara would later liken to <strong>a pack of wolves\u2014always testing one another, always looking for weakness. <\/strong>This formed the basis of a special bond between Tara and Tyler. It was Tyler who introduced her to classical music, and helped ignite her first sparks of interest in the world outside Buck\u2019s Peak, Idaho.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once he left for college, he rarely returned home. Years later, Tara, looking back through the lens of her <em>own <\/em>liberation from the family, would observe that he was <strong>\u201cbuilding a new life for himself across enemy lines.\u201d<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His decision to go to college and openly defy Gene\u2019s propaganda planted a seed in Tara. It would serve as a powerful example of a life that could be achieved outside the confines of her isolated world. Tara would later walk the path that had been paved by Tyler.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-tara-plans-her-own-escape\">Tara Plans Her Own Escape<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Even as a teenager, Tara could see the life she was destined for if she stayed on Buck\u2019s Peak. <strong>She would be married off at 18 or 19<\/strong>, and she and her husband would be given some remote corner of the family property on which to build a house and start their own family. She would likely have a life which replicated that of her own mother: <strong>learning homeopathy, bearing children, and acting as a midwife.<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tara was now determined to get out, to seek a different life off of Buck\u2019s Peak, Idaho, just as Tyler had done. She drove 40 miles to the nearest bookstore and purchased an ACT study guide. But after being confounded by the algebraic notations in the math section, she realized just how deep her ignorance ran. It wasn\u2019t simply that she didn\u2019t know how to solve the problems\u2014she didn\u2019t even recognize the <em>symbols<\/em>. <strong>She was mathematically illiterate<\/strong>.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The next day, she drove the same distance to purchase an algebra textbook: she now knew that <strong>she would need to cram years worth of learning into a few short months. <\/strong>Tara set to work teaching herself the most basic mathematical operations like multiplying fractions and decimals\u2014things she would have mastered <em>years <\/em>before, had she had the benefit of a proper education. But slowly, painstakingly, she made progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-tara-leaves-buck-s-peak\"><strong>Tara Leaves Buck&#8217;s Peak<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Life at college would bring new opportunities, as well as new challenges for Tara. She began wriggling free from her family\u2019s dogma, but was constantly reminded of just how profound an effect Buck\u2019s Peak had on her. Her new experiences at college would force Tara to look at her old life on Buck\u2019s Peak in a whole new light.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-fish-out-of-water\"><strong>Fish Out of Water<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>On New Year\u2019s Day, Faye drove Tara to her new life at BYU. What struck Tara immediately was the noise in Provo, Utah, where the university was located. Growing up on Buck\u2019s Peak, she had been accustomed to constant silence. Here, however, there was noise from crosswalk signals, motor traffic, and people on the streets.<strong> It was her first small taste of culture shock.<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She received an even bigger shock when she met her roommates. One of them wore clothes that her father would have surely decried as frivolous and indecent, like tank tops with spaghetti straps and pink pajama bottoms with \u201cJuicy\u201d written on the back. They also shopped on the Sabbath and, overall, appeared to lead highly secular lives. <strong>These were the <em>exact <\/em>kind of women that her parents and Shawn had told her to stay away from.<\/strong><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tara quickly clashed with these roommates over issues of cleanliness and personal hygiene. Growing up, Gene had taught Tara that <strong>practices like washing one\u2019s hands after using the bathroom and disposing of rotten food in a garbage bag were frivolous<\/strong>. Thus, Tara thought nothing of leaving moldy peaches in the refrigerator or only showering once a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tara\u2019s academic career was about to take her to new heights of intellectual and personal discovery, taking her to places she\u2019d never dreamed she would go. But the chaos and extremism of Buck\u2019s Peak would continue to exert a powerful hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-tara-s-final-break-from-buck-s-peak\">Tara&#8217;s <strong>Final Break<\/strong> From Buck&#8217;s Peak<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>By the time Tara was in graduate school at Cambridge and Harvard, Tara&#8217;s parents believed she was possessed by demons because of how far her life had strayed from the way she was raised on Buck&#8217;s Peak. Gene offered to perform a blessing on Tara to rid her of demons, but she declined. Her defiance of her father and refusal of his blessing was a watershed moment for Tara. She saw that all of her study, hard work, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/physical-and-mental-development\/\">intellectual development<\/a> had led to this moment.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still, Tara yearned to be part of her family. The heartache of being separated from them was destroying her. She decided to return to Buck\u2019s Peak, Idaho for one last chance to reconcile. She showed up for a surprise visit. Faye was ecstatic when Tara came through the door. For a moment, Tara felt as though she was still loved, still accepted for who she was.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was, until she went to the family computer to send an email. She happened to see a previously sent email open in the browser, from Faye to Erin, one of Shawn\u2019s ex-girlfriends. In the email, <strong>Faye castigated Tara as a liar and a danger to the rest of the family.<\/strong> She said that Tara was lost and without faith.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The message was clear: Faye would <em>never <\/em>defend Tara and truly believed that the latter was the source of the family\u2019s problems. It was now clear that this was no longer Tara\u2019s home, and hadn\u2019t been for a long time. <strong>There was nothing left on Buck\u2019s Peak for Tara<\/strong>, nothing for her to cherish or hold on to.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She made an excuse that she was going to her car to take a drive. As she left, she saw her father, who hugged her and said, \u201cI love you, you know that?\u201d Tara replied, \u201cThat has never been the issue.\u201d These were the last words she spoke to her father. <strong>She got in her car and drove away\u2014away from Buck\u2019s Peak, and away from her former life<\/strong>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Where is Buck&#8217;s Peak? What was Educated author Tara Westover&#8217;s life there like? Buck&#8217;s Peak is a remote mountain in Franklin County, Idaho and childhood home of author Tara Westover. Growing up in Buck&#8217;s Peak, Westover experienced more than just ideological extremism. Her parents\u2019 beliefs had real-world consequences for the children, which frequently put Tara and her siblings in grave danger. Whether it was through near-death experiences in car crashes or maimings in the junkyard where her father Gene forced his children to work, it was a constant struggle for survival on Buck\u2019s Peak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":125513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,33],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-2320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-people","tag-educated","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Buck&#039;s Peak: Why Tara Westover Escaped the Mountain - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Buck&#039;s Peak is a remote mountain in rural Idaho and the childhood home of author Tara Westover. 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