Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest's Most Controversial Season
by Nick Heil
from Henry Holt and Co.
If David Sharp’s death was shocking, it was hardly singular: despite unusually good weather, ten others died attempting to reach the summit that year. In this meticulous inquiry into what went wrong, Nick Heil tells the full story of the deadliest year on Everest since the infamous season of 1996. He introduces Russell Brice, the commercial operator who has done more than anyone to provide access to the summit via the mountain’s north side—and who some believe was partly accountable for Sharp’s death. As more climbers attempt the summit each year, Heil shows how increasingly risky expeditions and unscrupulous outfitters threaten to turn Everest into a deadly circus.
Written by an experienced climber and outdoor writer, Dark Summit is both a riveting account of a notorious climbing season and a troubling investigation into whether the pursuit of the ultimate mountaineering prize has spiraled out of control.
High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed
by Michael Kodas
from Hyperion
In the years following the publication of Into Thin Air, much has changed on Mount Everest. Among all the books documenting the glorious adventures in mountains around the world, and the unique perils and challenges of Mount Everest, none details how the recent infusion of wealth into the mountains is reacting with the age-old lust for glory to draw crime to the highest places on the planet, how a mountain's ability to reduce climbers to their essential selves is revealing villains as well as heroes, greed as well as selflessness. The change is caused both by a tremendous boom in traffic to the world's mountains and a new class of parasitic and predatory adventurer. Some of the stories included in the book are the tragic story of Nils Antezana, a climber who died on Everest after he was abandoned by his guide, and the author's own summit story, as he participated in the Connecticut Everest Expedition, which would never have followed George Dijjmarescu and Lhakpa Sherpa to the Himalaya had news of the couple's climb with the Romanian team the previous year made it to the United States. But as they neared the frigid peril of Everest, the charming couple turned increasingly hostile. Women on the team held little power and were instead threatened, stalked, and harassed before a final assault. Those that tried to stand against the violence, theft and intimidation found the worst of the peril they encountered on Everest had followed them home to Connecticut. Beatings, thefts, drugs, prostitution, coercion, threats, and abandonment on the highest slopes of Everest and other mountains have become the rule rather than the exception, and Kodas describes many of these experiences and explores the larger issues these stories raise with thriller-like intensity.
Sand County Almanac (Outdoor Essays & Reflections)
by Aldo Leopold
from Ballantine Books
Published in 1949, shortly after the author's death, A Sand County Almanac is a classic of nature writing, widely cited as one of the most influential nature books ever published. Writing from the vantage of his summer shack along the banks of the Wisconsin River, Leopold mixes essay, polemic, and memoir in his book's pages. In one famous episode, he writes of killing a female wolf early in his career as a forest ranger, coming upon his victim just as she was dying, "in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes.... I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view." Leopold's road-to-Damascus change of view would find its fruit some years later in his so-called land ethic, in which he held that nothing that disturbs the balance of nature is right. Much of Almanac elaborates on this basic premise, as well as on Leopold's view that it is something of a human duty to preserve as much wild land as possible, as a kind of bank for the biological future of all species. Beautifully written, quiet, and elegant, Leopold's book deserves continued study and discussion today. --Gregory McNamee
"We can place this book on the shelf that holds the writings of Thoreau and John Muir." San Francisco Chronicle
These astonishing portraits of the natural world explore the breathtaking diversity of the unspoiled American landscape -- the mountains and the prairies, the deserts and the coastlines. A stunning tribute to our land and a bold challenge to protect the world we love.
Mountains of the Mind: Adventures in Reaching the Summit
by Robert Macfarlane
from Vintage
Combining accounts of legendary mountain ascents with vivid descriptions of his own forays into wild, high landscapes, Robert McFarlane reveals how the mystery of the world’s highest places has came to grip the Western imagination—and perennially draws legions of adventurers up the most perilous slopes.
His story begins three centuries ago, when mountains were feared as the forbidding abodes of dragons and other mysterious beasts. In the mid-1700s the attentions of both science and poetry sparked a passion for mountains; Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Lord Byron extolled the sublime experiences to be had on high; and by 1924 the death on Mt Everest of an Englishman named George Mallory came to symbolize the heroic ideals of his day. Macfarlane also reflects on fear, risk, and the shattering beauty of ice and snow, the competition and contemplation of the climb, and the strange alternate reality of high altitude, magically enveloping us in the allure of mountains at every level.
Nature Noir: A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra
by Jordan Fisher Smith
from Mariner Books
A nature book unlike any other, Jordan Fisher Smith's startling account of fourteen years as a park ranger thoroughly dispels our idealized visions of life in the great outdoors. Instead of scout troops and placid birdwatchers, Smith's beat -- a stretch of land that has been officially condemned to be flooded -- brings him into contact with drug users tweaked out to the point of violence, obsessed miners, and other dangerous creatures. In unflinchingly honest prose, he reveals the unexpectedly dark underbelly of patrolling and protecting public lands.
Polar Dream: The First Solo Expedition by a Woman and Her Dog to the Magnetic North Pole
by Helen Thayer
from NewSage Press
Ancient Civilizations of the Southwest 2009 Calendar
from Tide-Mark Press
Bringing Down the Mountains: The Impact of Mountaintop Removal on Southern West Virginia Communities
by Shirley Stewart Burns
from West Virginia University Press
"Bringing Down the Mountains" provides insight into how mountaintop removal (MTR) surface coal mining has affected the people and the land of southern West Virginia. It examines the mechanization of the mining industry and the power relationships between coal interests, politicians, and the average citizen. "Bringing Down the Mountains" reveals how a political system married to natural-resource extraction turns a blind eye to the irrevocable disfigurement of the earth while thousands of West Virginians suffer the consequences. MTR has ruined homes, increased the risk of flooding, endangered the lives of school children, forced friends and family members out of town, and turned West Virginia's hardwood forests into moonscapes.
Trails of the Angeles: 100 Hikes in the San Gabriels
by John W. Robinson
from Wilderness Press
The rugged San Gabriel Mountains, rising starkly from the edge of the Los Angeles Basin, provide a sharp contrast the hustle and bustle of the city and its surroundings. Angelinos across the county (a population of almost 10 million), as well as visitors from out of state, welcome the opportunity to escape from city chaos into the quiet wilderness.
This 8th edition of the classic Wilderness Press guide has been revised and updated to reflect recent trail changes due to fires and floods, and now includes trips in the Fish Canyon Narrows, along Alder Creek, and to Jones Peak, as well as perennial favorites such as Old Baldy, Mt. Wilson, and Devils Punchbowl. Each detailed trip description notes the distance, difficulty, and ideal season, and points out the highlights of the trail.
Don't Waste Your Time in the Canadian Rockies: The Opinionated Hiking Guide (Don't Waste Your Time)
by Kathy Copeland
from Hikingcamping.com
This all-new, fifth edition describes 138 dayhikes and backpack trips in Banff, Jasper, Kootenay, Yoho, and Waterton national parks, as well as Mt. Robson and Assiniboine provincial parks. HereÂ’s the discerning advice you need to create rewarding adventures. This guide rates and reviews trips as Premier, Outstanding, Worthwhile, or DonÂ’t Do. 260 colour photos reveal this stunning wilderness. Trail maps for each trip enhance the comprehensive route descriptions
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