Lake Chelan


Book Description

John Fahey fell in love with Lake Chelan at an early age and became convinced it is the world's greatest lake. As an adult, he set out to prove it.




Lake Chelan Valley


Book Description

A jewel nestled in the Cascade Mountains, fjord-like Lake Chelan is known today for its recreational opportunities, prominence in the apple industry, and up-and-coming wineries. This 55-mile-long lake, walled by cliffs for much of its length, was part of the traditional hunting, fishing, and gathering lands of several Native American tribes, including the Chelan Indians. The first European explorers arrived in 1811 seeking fur trade routes. Settlement began in earnest about 1886 with land allotments and homestead claims for the Chelan and Entiat Indians. Mining, logging, hydropower, the establishment of the Chelan town site, and the development of a lake ferry system followed. Generations of colorful characters appear in the history of the valley: trappers and miners, early entrepreneurs, and boat captains who piloted the steamers that served as the highway of the valley. All are part of the fabric of the Lake Chelan Valley today.







Day Hiking North Cascades


Book Description

This guide covers Mount Baker, the North Cascades Highway (SR 20) corridor, North Cascades National Park, Winthrop and the Methow Valley, the Pasayten Wilderness area, parts of Glacier Peak Wilderness, and the Mountain Loop Highway. Compact and fresh with a broad range of hiking options, this is the most up-to-date guide for the area, and is organized along highway and other travel corridors with an emphasis on trails that are 12 miles or shorter, round-trip. The new edition features 136 hikes total, with 30 all-new ones and several expanded routes. Many of these hikes are not included in any other guide.




Aerial Geology


Book Description

“Get your head into the clouds with Aerial Geology.” —The New York Times Book Review Aerial Geology is an up-in-the-sky exploration of North America’s 100 most spectacular geological formations. Crisscrossing the continent from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska to the Great Salt Lake in Utah and to the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico, Mary Caperton Morton brings you on a fantastic tour, sharing aerial and satellite photography, explanations on how each site was formed, and details on what makes each landform noteworthy. Maps and diagrams help illustrate the geological processes and clarify scientific concepts. Fact-filled, curious, and way more fun than the geology you remember from grade school, Aerial Geology is a must-have for the insatiably curious, armchair geologists, million-mile travelers, and anyone who has stared out the window of a plane and wondered what was below.




The Bears of Brooks Falls: Wildlife and Survival on Alaska's Brooks River


Book Description

A natural history and celebration of the famous bears and salmon of Brooks River. On the Alaska Peninsula, where exceptional landscapes are commonplace, a small river attracts attention far beyond its scale. Each year, from summer to early fall, brown bears and salmon gather at Brooks River to create one of North America’s greatest wildlife spectacles. As the salmon leap from the cascade, dozens of bears are there to catch them (with as many as forty-three bears sighted in a single day), and thousands of people come to watch in person or on the National Park Service’s popular Brooks Falls Bearcam. The Bears of Brooks Falls tells the story of this region and the bears that made it famous in three parts. The first forms an ecological history of the region, from its dormancy 30,000 years ago to the volcanic events that transformed it into the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. The central and longest section is a deep dive into the lives of the wildlife along the Brooks River, especially the bears and salmon. Readers will learn about the bears’ winter hibernation, mating season, hunting rituals, migration patterns, and their relationship with Alaska’s changing environment. Finally, the book explores the human impact, both positive and negative, on this special region and its wild population.




Rare Bird


Book Description

“Rare insights into the trials and joys of scientific discovery.” —Publisher’s Weekly




Hikertrash


Book Description

Teetering awkwardly on the brink of insanity, unable to handle life in snowy, cold, ultra-conservative North Idaho, Carl and Erin sold their house and set out in search of a new place to call home. Suddenly finding themselves completely free of responsibilities, jobless, and with a little spare cash in the bank, it didn't take long before their serious search for a new life took some unexpected twists and turns. "What do you think we should do when we return to the States?" Erin asked Carl, as they sat outside a tiny cafe sipping coffee. It was a question that had been plaguing her for weeks as they budget travelled across South East Asia in an attempt to avoid winter (and reality). "I've been thinking about it, and I think we should thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail." Was Carl's totally unexpected reply. Spend months on end traipsing through the wilderness, petting bunnies and chasing rainbows, as they hiked 2,660 miles from Mexico to Canada? How could Erin possibly say no? Life Rule #1: Never, ever, turn down an adventure. Friends wagered they wouldn't last a week, but before they knew it, days turned into months as they made their way across America at three miles an hour. As Carl and Erin morphed into Bearclaw and Hummingbird, they found that being hikertrash suited them. Though they will both admit the trail was life altering, there were no great epiphanies, no magic answers to all of life's burning questions, no "ah-ha " moments when suddenly life made sense. This is not a tale of personal growth. Through blisters and shin splints, jaw-dropping landscapes and craptastically unspectacular forests, searing heat and pouring rain, complete hilarity and utter exhaustion, this is the story of what day-to-day life is really like on one of America's greatest trails. As told through Hummingbird's journal entries, this is the story of life on the trail - the people you meet, the things you see, and how, mile by mile, you eventually become Hikertrash. Includes: 6 Overview Maps to Follow our Journey 19 Black & White Photos of Sights Along the Trail Leave No Trace Tips Our Gear Lists Our Trail Recipes What Is Hikertrash? Hikertrash: a long distance hiker, shabby and homeless in appearance, rarely bathed and rank in odor, more at home outdoors than in society, with a deep reverence and respect for all things wild.




Day Hiking Central Cascades


Book Description

CLICK HERE to download three sample hikes from Day Hiking Central Cascades 125 trails, each rated on an overall-quality scale of 1 to 5 Full-color photo insert and overview map 1% of sales donated to the Washington Trails Association for trail maintenance The Central Cascades offer some of the most accessible wilderness areas for urban Seattleites, with trails no less stunning or enjoyable than those in more remote regions. Day Hiking Central Cascades includes 50% more hikes than other regional guidebooks and focuses on cream-of-the-crop trails in these areas: Whidbey Island; Skykomish, Wenatchee, and Icicle River Valleys; the Entiat Mountains; the Lake Chelan area; and more. Compact in size, this is the most up-to-date guide for the area, organized along highways and other travel corridors, and with an emphasis on trails that are 12 miles or less, round-trip, each of them hiked by the author. **Mountaineers Books designates 1 percent of the sales of select guidebooks in our Day Hiking series toward volunteer trail maintenance. For this book, our 1 percent of sales is going to Washington Trails Association (WTA). WTA hosts more than 750 work parties throughout Washington’s Cascades and Olympics each year, with volunteers clearing downed logs after spring snowmelt, cutting away brush, retreading worn stretches of trail, and building bridges and turnpikes. Their efforts are essential to the land managers who maintain thousands of acres on shoestring budgets.




A Sideways Look at Clouds


Book Description

• Written by a critically-acclaimed natural-history author • Shares author’s fun journey to understanding clouds • Written for the curious—but non-science—minded Author Maria Mudd Ruth fell in love with clouds the same way she stumbles into most passions: madly and unexpectedly. A Sideways Look at Clouds is the story of her quite accidental infatuation with and education about the clouds above. When she moved to the soggy Northwest a decade ago, Maria assumed that locals would know everything there was to know about clouds, in the same way they talk about salmon, tides, and the Seahawks. Yet in her first two years of living in Olympia, Washington, she never heard anyone talk about clouds—only the rain. Puzzled by this lack of cloud savvy, she decided to create a 10-question online survey and sent it to everyone she knew. Her sample size of 67 people included men and women, new friends in Olympia, family on the East Coast, outdoorsy and indoorsy types, professional scientists, and liberal arts majors like herself. The results showed that while people knew a little bit about clouds, most were like her—they had a hard time identifying clouds or remembering their names. As adults, they had lost their curiosity and sense of wonder about clouds and were, essentially, not in the habit of looking up. A Sideways Look at Clouds acknowledges the challenges of understanding clouds and so uses a very steep and bumpy learning curve—the author’s—as its plot line. The book is structured around the ten words used in most definitions of a cloud: “a visible mass of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the earth.” A captivating story teller, Maria blends science, wonder, and humor to take the scenic route through the clouds and encourages readers to chart their own rambling, idiosyncratic course.