Alpine Reviews

Spanning the globe from Asia to Antarctica to Alaska to New Guinea, this wonderful book is a must for any mountain lover--including those of the armchair variety. The illustrations are heartpounding, while about a few dozen short narratives are wholly satisfying. This book is a wee bit pricey, and, tho' I am a poor boy, I don't feel one bit robbed. This may be the best picture book/narrative mtn. book I own.

It's got such fantastic photography, the hardcover is well worth the investment.

Great photographs in this book - largely by John Cleare one of the world's greatest mountain photographers. Thank you John for yet more stunning photographs!

This is a gorgeous, fact filled book, but hard to classify. Joyce Gellhorn is an adventurous women - one of the women backpackers interviewed in Susan Alcorn's book, We're in the Mountains, Not Over the Hill: Tales and Tips From Seasoned Women Backpackers. Song of the Alpine tells how at the age of 15, Joyce Gellhorn and her sister decided to climb all of Colorado's 14,000 foot peaks, starting with Longs Peak. The author was hooked on the high tundra country, and made a career of it, getting a Ph.D. in botany, with a specialty in plant ecology. Her book is beautiful, glossy paged, lots of color photos, but by the end of it you realize that you have also picked up a huge amount of factual information - the physics of thunderstorms, the winter habits of pikas, wet snow and dry snow avalanches, early mountain climbers - worth the price just for the pika photos.

Joyce Gellhorn is a botanist, a science teacher, a gifted photographer and a passionate observer and explorer of the natural world. She has combined these talents with fine writing in her book, "Song of the Alpine". This book is a treasure for anyone who has wandered the fragile and exquisite land above the trees whether in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado (Gellhorn's home) or high peaks anywhere in the world. Ever wonder how the tiny alpine flowers survive in the rocky alpine terrains? How the ptarmagin manage not only to survive but actually to gain weight during the long, harsh winters? Why when spring comes to the Rockies, yellow and grey butterflies (Rocky Mountain parnassian) swarm the meadows of yellow flowers (stone crop)? "Song of the Alpine" illustrates and explains these fascinating adaptions and interactions and symbiotic relationships. Gellhorn's book includes over 140 photographs to accompany her text. The book is a guide and an inspiration to the reader. Gellhorn asks us to bear witness: to observe the dance of the tiniest insects, to study the amazing design of a snow crystal and to experience the grand symphony of the alpine weather in all seasons. This book teaches us that the more we can know of the natural world, the more we will experience the song and the joy that Gellhorn so eloquently evokes.

Song and of the Alpine presents fascinating details about plant and animal survival in North America's harshest and most scenic landscape: how ptarmigan burrow into the snow to survive frigid winter nights, how sky pilots use their skunky smell to attract pollinators, how the bright yellow petals of snow buttercups act as solar collectors. Lyrical prose depicting the flow of the seasons and struggle for survival weaves these ecological insights together. Lovely color photographs of wildflowers, butterflies, wildlife, and dramatic weather events accompany the text. I will read this book over and over, and I will carry it with me whenever I go camping in the high country.

The combination of compelling anecdotes, history, and practical information will make this classic book stick around a long time. What really got me, is how someone could put so much information and photographs and readable narrative between two covers. Like 50 Classic Climbs, the book is a must have for all riders, skiers and mountaineers, and made the perfect gift for my husband.

Just talking about the beautifully reproduced photographs alone, without the text, this would be an awesome coffee table book. But we like to ride too, and now that we've enjoyed all of the routes in Colorado, we're looking at Mt. Shasta and Alaska.

Wild Snow is the most inspirational, well written, complete book on backcountry skiing I've seen. Each chapter has concise and interesting details on some of the greatest ski descents in North American.

lou dawson's book fills an important need in north american ski mountaineering, in that it both inspires the novice and tantalizes the seasoned outdoor buff. the trail guides in this volume are enough to keep anyone busy for a lifetime of off-piste adventure. we need more books like this.

CREATING AND PLANTING GARDEN TROUGHS by Joyce Fingerut and Rex Murfitt is a pragmatic and down-to-earth (or hypertufa) work book with 164 jam-packed detailed pages printed on non-gloss heavy paper. The book contains about 10 pages of color photos, so if you're looking for a "look-book" as opposed to a "work-book" don't stop here. TROUGHS won an American Horticultural Society Book Award, and like AHS publications and U.S.D.A. government publications this publication is filled with good, solid information. (Reminds me of the Girl Scout Handbook.)

Fingerut and Martin begin with an overview of the history and background of troughs (originally carved from solid stone and used to hold water for livestock). Even though most of the photos are in black and white, you obtain a clear idea of the beauty various shapes and sizes can add to your garden. The older troughs covered with moss are to die for.

A section on "Hypertufa" explains what it is and why it is useful for making incredibly lightweight and strong facsimiles of real stone troughs. Next, the reader is supplied a shopping list of ingredients, utensils and other supplies (rubber gloves, polystyrene foam, duct tape, etc.) needed for the trough-making project. Exact quantities and amounts are not provided, but ratios are given instead. This lack of exactness might prove frustrating to the new trough maker.

A good part of the book is devoted to the design and installation of plants in troughs. There are many excellent photos and an informative text describing plant choices, plant care, recommendations, etc.). If you aren't inclined to take on the obviously dirty and labor-intensive work of making your own troughs, you can check to see if your local garden supply store or nursery sells ready-made troughs and then use this book as a guide to filling them with plants.

For the novice or experienced trough maker or trough gardener, this book is a MUST HAVE. I could have been spared months of research and many lost hours in trough construction had this book been available when I began making troughs! A very organized presentation of material with breath taking color photographs, detailed resources, extensive plant index, and easy to assimilate instructions. I recommend this to all my "trough students"! A worthy investment!

What to say about "Esquiar con los pies" -> "Skiing with the feet", just a nice tech reading for the long and sunny summer days.

The book offers a simple method to improve your ski level focussing on your feet. It is inspired in the same methods that are using the best alpine skiing trainers all over the World, but for every body (not only for racers) and every ski level. This really works.

I read this book and I must say I was quite pleased with it. It offers a good guide to ski tunning, with step by step instructions. I particularly liked the checklist at the beginning of each chapter that made the whole book as a sequential script on how to fine tune our skis. It doesn't, however, go too much into the details of ski tunning, but that was not its purpose anyways. I would say that this book is a wonderfull complement to Seth Masia's book, where more detailed stuff can be found.

Not only does From Tip to Tail provide you with a WORKING knowledge of ski tuning, it offers up something that other ski tuning manuals don't‹simplicity and focus. I found that after having read this small, but potently illustrated book, the art of ski tuning suddenly was within my grasp. Now I'm keeping that money I used to dole out to ski techs and buying the author a ceegar

This is what the U.S. ski team needs-- someone like Gretchen Fraser.

This is a book for any aspiring Olympian. It tells of the early days of skiing in thr United States up to the present time. If you love skiing, ski history, and the people who made the sport, this is a good read. It has won two awards and is the only book published on the life of Gretchen Fraser, America's first gold medalist in Olympic skiing. It's written by multi-award winning ski writer, Luanne Pfeifer of Sun Valley.

In the tradition of the Narnia Chronicles, _No Clock in the Forest_ is the best-written novel in the English language since Mark Helprin's _Winter's Tale_. Set in a vividly-depicted Pacific Northwest, William, followed by Lance and Gwen, become lost on hikes in the mountains and find the wilderness about them strangely changed, wilder, and full of unsuspected magic. The Muses dwell here, as do the fair folk and talking marmots. An ancient struggle between good and evil is coming to a head.

Prof. Willis paints with his prose and wields historical and Arthurian allusions with a deftness not seen since Milton. The adult reader will enjoy insights that may be over-looked by the juvenile, who will nonetheless love this book.

This novel truly is one of my all-time favorites. I even keep it on the same shelf as my Tolkien collection. I have had the pleasure of sharing this new classic with friends who have in turn fallen in love with it.

This book is truly amazing and brings a new understanding to the beautiful wilderness. This is a real classic and a must read! This is truly the best book you can ever get for under 8 bucks! I sure wish we had wilderness here.

I would give this book 6 stars if I could as it is the best book on skiing-related fitness I have seen so far. Written by a professional ski coach, it is filled with information starting from the body metabolism, plyometric and strength training exercises, to training which can be perfomed while skiing. All off-snow exercises which I saw in skiing videos, books, skiing journals, and on the internet are in this book. The importance of each group of exercises is clearly explained. No special equipment is required (except for the access to an average gym for strength training). The suggested training routines are based on US skiing team manuals and on over 80 references cited in the bibliography. All 200 pages are densely packed with information, all presented so well that it does not overwhelm you at all. Another aspect of this book which I liked is that the author treats the readers as intellegent people, who can put together their own training schedule according to their needs and possibilities. There is no suggested training schedules, just recommendations how much one should exercise and why not more or less than that. Although it is not a book on skiing, there are some tips on racing and ski tuning as well. This book is worth many others published on this topic, and I applaud the author for doing such a fine job!

I ordered this book because I am looking for training tips for my son -a young ski racer. The book is 80% devoted to training excercises, both on/off snow. The author is correct that the new shaped skiis have little effect on the validity of the training taught within. I would recommend the book to coaches, racers, and others for whom skiing isn't just something to do on the slopes, but for whom the pursuit of maximum performance is most important.

Dick Williams' guide books are important and essential reading for the occasional rock climbing, i.e. almost everybody who climbs. The older editions of this book which combine all three climbing areas has become quite a collectors item, one I am proud to own in addition to this title, the one I actually haul up the rock. GD

Written by the Vulgarian that did a lot of the development in the Gunks, this guide gives details for every pitch including protection ratings for each pitch. Swain's guide is often difficult to determine when a pitch ends and starts and only gives protection ratings for the whole climb. This leads to confusion at times with a 5.8 climb being rated G that may have a 5.4 or 5.6 pitch which is R or PG. The downside to Williams's guide is that you have to buy a separate book for the Near Trapps and Skytop/Millbrook. If you plan on spending a lot of time at the Gunks, go with Williams. Otherwise, Swain's guide is adequate and it covers everything but Millbrook.