Colorado Books

Best information comes from objective extended journal reviews. See
them for yourself at

http://www.uccs.edu/~asoifer/

I hope you would enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it!

(This is all I meant to say, but amazon.com required a "rating in stars" in order to receive these lines -- I am not a judge, you are! So read and enter your verdict.)

I've taken the Olympiad exams as a high school student, and helped grade the exams after high school. The explanations of the problems are exceptional. I'm honored to have met Dr. Soifer. ...

I know this competition and I know problems of this very interesting but I can't buy this book because in my country it is imposible.So : I VERY WANT READ THIS BOOK !

I bought this book as a means of finding places to paddle whitewater after moving from New England to Colorado. Boy did it deliver and then some! The Beta section for each run provides a good idea as to what the run will be like (difficulty, length, gradient, elevation), season, gauge, and put-in/take-out. The descriptions are then more than helpful at filling in whatever else is needed before trying out the section of river. The maps are perfect for assisting with finding the put in, take out, and locations of portages around dangers (dams, low bridges).

Not one square inch of space is wasted either. Besides all the useful information, there are lots of great pictures, stories, and discussion of the laws and access issues that are relevant when paddling Colorado whitewater.

On a final note, I purchased the book from patches263, which at the time was the only bookseller selling new copies. I think it was one of the authors, because I got a nice note/autographed copy from "Dave". The book came quickly and in perfect condition.

This book details all the best rivers for kayaking and raftingin Colorado. It is a must have for anyone who kayaks in colorado.This book details put-ins, take-outs and detailed information about rapids in most of the rivers in colorado. Great resource! END

Easily the best book on boating in Colorado! With all the information you need to get from put in to take out. If you plan on doing any boating in Colorado, you need this book. The river is my road and Colorado Rivers and Creeks II is my bible. It can't be beat!

This book captures the beauty and spirit of Colorado. Mr. Keen has a rare talent that allows him to transport us to places of extreme beauty through his artistry. An added bonus to this book is the companion cd where he shares his expertise with his readers. If you want to experience Colorado, pick up this book, sit back and enjoy.

As a longtime resident of Colorado I have loved looking through the photos of the many places I've hiked and visited over the years. The pictures of the mountains are awesome. When I am citybound, I just pick up the book for a reminder of how wonderful Colorado is. The crispness and color in the book make these photos belive you are right there, standing in the very space the photo was taken. You don't have to live here either to enjoy this book. Many of my out of state relatives love it! Highly recommended!

I own this great book on the Colorado Rocky Mountains! Every page shows breathtaking pictures in the Colorado Rockies... from quiet streams and meadow wildflowers to the towering aspens and "purple mountains majesty". The best gift/coffee table book that I've seen in a long time and certainly the best of the Colorado books. We were able to see this book and a display of a dozen or more of Jim Keens panagraphic images at Denver International Airport in early 2002. The 3 x 8 foot enlargements were awesome! I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a good book to buy as a gift --- and you'll enjoy it so much you'll buy one for yourself as well.

This book is a beautiful tour of Colorado . Very well-written with gorgeous photographs from the entire state. Reading this was a pleasure. If you love the outdoors, you'll love this book.

I have lived in and traveled through Colorado for 40 years and this beautiful book introduced me to places I didn't know existed.The photos and discriptions of the Colorado prarie are special and I shall be heading that way soon! First however a look at Cripple Creek and Leadville may be in order...I hope this book will inspire us all to save this beautiful state.

The photos in this book are stunning and inspiring, a handsome overview of the state to the north of where I presently live. They are vivid reminders of why I moved to the West many years ago, and reinforce the fragility of Colorado's pristine beauty. What completely dazzled me though, was the splendidly crafted text from Judy Sellers, which made my imagination soar. Who could not be moved by this insightful look at Colorado's 'wild,' documented by someone who is actively working to preserve it? While this makes a beautiful coffee table book, it is much, much more, just like the state it portrays.

Everyone who has scoured the used bookstores looking for a copy of this Gerry Roach classic can now rest easy. With this new 1998 edition, it's back and better than ever. It includes topo maps with routes, detailed mileage and elevation gain for each route, and more pictures than the original. Indian Peaks Wilderness is one of my favorite areas in Colorado - it runs the gamut from very accessible, popular hiking trails with spectacular scenery to the pure wilderness experience. Gerry's enthusiasm and love for this area come through loud and clear in this definitive hiking and climbing guide to IPW.

As you might expect with a Gerry Roach guide, this one is very good. For those that aren't familiar with Gerry's work, then wait no longer and buy the book. You'll see why...

This one is on par with his excellent 14ers guidebook. I suppose if I had no nitpick (its why we write reviews I guess?) then I'd wish for color photos instead of b & w. Oh and yes my one complaint with Gerry's stuff is that there really isn't any off-season climbing info. However, since many, heck if not most, people do their climbing in the summer it won't be an issue. All in all an excellent guide that is especially strong in its route descriptions, approach details, and climbing information. Also Gerry's classic rating (basically his stamp of an outstanding climb) is included as with the 14ers guide. Don't go climbing in the Indian Peaks without this in your pack.

I can't believe climbing guide got republished the same month I moved out of the area. The CU Hiking club almost had to chain down their copy so it didn't get lifted.

Great climbing beta. I never would have tried to climb Skywalker with so much snowpack had the guide been availble at the time.

That's it! I'm moving back.

Osimiti Pine

History comes alive in this authentic yet fascinating peek into many of Colorado's movers and shakers. This is NOT history as you remember it from school. No endless list of dates, no dull recitation of soldiers in battle. Instead, the famous and the infamous, along with representatives of the solid stock upon which the state's future rested, are captured in readable vignettes. While Fetter is an historian, she never surrenders to the mundane and ordinary. Every life has a story, and the collection of historic characters--heroines, scoundrels, the tragic, the triumphant--make you wonder if you could have met the challenges of frontier life. . .how your own existence will be viewed eventually. Perfect for history buffs, lovers, students, and visitors to and residents of the state.

I grew up in Colorado and thought I was familiar with the stories behind the famous names of many of the towns, buildings, streets and monuments throughout the state. However, "Colorado's Legendary Lovers" provided fascinating new insight into these pioneers and introduced me to many previously unknown but equally fascinating characters. With humor and compassion, Ms. Fetter takes the reader into the intimate lives of the politicians, madams, magnates, miners, chiefs, gamblers, scoundrels, heroes, heroines, saints and sinners who contributed much of the color and drama to the rich history of the early West. Some of the stories detail triumphant lives of great success. Others describe tragic figures who never were successful or whom success ruined. A few made me laugh out loud. All are told in detail so vivid that the reader is transported back in time, hearing the sounds coming from the mines and saloons, smelling the perfume and dust, and feeling the heat and cold. If you're headed toward Colorado, this is the book to read on the plane, curl up with in front of the fireplace at the ski lodge or keep on the nightstand at your Bed and Breakfast.

Colorado's Legendary Lovers is a delightfully written collection of "mini-biographies" of famous (and infamous) Colorado couples. The 51entries average five pages each and are divided into chapter groupings like "Natives and Pioneers" "Scandals and Triangles," "Lovers for Life" and "Haunting Romances." Within these categories Fetter details romances of some of the state's best known personalities of the Victorian era (circa 1840-1912).

There are the expected entries, like Horace Tabor and Baby Doe, Kit Carson and Maria Josefa Jaramillo, Chipeta and Chief Ouray, Spencer and Julie Penrose, as well as an affair of the heart for Isabella Bird. There are less traditional entries such as the "Trinidad Madams' Association" (an early labor movement in the red light district),"the Saga Mountain Charley" (a woman who cross-dresses to exact revenge on her husband's killer), and "Lovesick Ladies of Pitkin County" (illustrating the struggle of same-sex lovers in a more restrictive era). Additional vignettes on the courting customs and tokens such as "Hair Jewelry" and social mores of the time are scattered throughout the volume.

A Denver native and fourth generation Coloradoan, Fetter's lifelong interest in local history and women's history is apparent in her research. Letters, journals and contemporary newspaper accounts are frequently cited in the entries. There is an extensive bibliography of secondary resources. However, the collection is not designed for researchers (although middle school and some high school students could find it useful). It will be popular with history buffs. As historian Thomas J. Noel suggests in his glowing foreword, "Her honesty, clarity, graceful writing and wit make this a sweetheart of a book."

Fetter has written on Colorado history topics for over a decade including Climb Every Mountain, the Story of Garland Country Day School.

Frankly, I'm impressed. One of the best new nature photographer's out there, obviously familiar with Weston and Adams, but forging into new territory as well. Bravo! Great website too.

After purchasing a recent copy of Colorado, Moments in Time, I feel compelled to give credit where credit is surely due. I was taken back by photograher Grant Collier's 'eye'. Grant takes photographs like I wish I could. Every photo is exquisite in it's own way. I am not a writer, so I do not feel that I can do justice to Grant Collier's work in text. I will not compare this work to other famous Colorado photographers because it would not be fair to them. In my oppinion, Grant Collier is simply the best. I have purchased other works of Grant Collier and am equally impressed with them. I strongly feel that Grant Collier is a name to watch as a rising star. Buy the books. Catch him while you can.

Colorado: Moments In Time superbly showcases the photography skills of Grant Collier in the form of more than 160 full-color images of Colorado's visually impressive wilderness areas. A very small amount of descriptive text embellishes these captivating snapshots of the Colorado wilderness' unfettered splendor, from a close-up of the state flower in full blossom to the rugged falls along the Elk River. Colorado: Moments In Time is a treasure for anyone who appreciates and cherishes natural beauty, and highly recommended.

Each chapter in this book is the account of what men who were either cowboys, ranchers, reporters, etc. observed and thought about cowboy life. It is a good book and interesting.

This is a collection of writings from the 19th and early 20th centuries about cowboys and cattle drives during the "Lonesome Dove" years after the Civil War. The book includes a large selection of full-page monochrome photographs of working cowboys, dating back to the 1880s.

Readers can trace the emergence of the cowboy as mythic figure, from his origins as a wild, unsavory character often regarded as a public menace in the frontier towns for his hard drinking and shoot-em-up antics. Readers will learn a great deal about the hard work and dangers of cowboying. And you get a sense of how cowboys on the range (most of them very young) were an elite fraternity of workmen, with specialized skills and a code of behavior that stoically honored bravery, while spending lavishly on saddles and the latest fashions in trail-wear. You also get a sense of how brief this period of history actually was, as the frontier swiftly moved westward and open rangeland was fenced in.

My favorite selections in the book are accounts by the cowboys themselves, describing the day-to-day routines and the occasional adventures of life on the trail. Among these is an excerpt from cowboy author, Andy Adams, whose "Log of a Cowboy" is a classic of Western literature. The editor of the collection, William W. Savage, Jr., who holds a PhD from the University of Oklahoma, has written an informative introduction based on what seems to be considerable familiarity with the subject of the American West.

William Savage is disturbed over the cowboy myth that has developed, especially in the last half-century or so. Depicting cowboys as gun-toting toughs, heroic, ever-free men of the range living extremely exciting and envious lives, is a lot of bunk according to Savage. Actually cowboys were often unsavory characters, often uneducated, unable to gain employment in other occupations, who had the ability to ride a horse decently and for many hours at a stretch. Although they were expected to be brave and resourceful, they were rarely heroic, and usually spent most of their time performing deadly dull chores for very little pay. In this book, Savage collects 13 excerpts from cowboy reminiscences (for the most part), published between 1874 and 1906 that show real cowboys in real settings doing real cowboy work.

The longest and perhaps best is from a book published by the National Live Stock Historical Association in 1905 that is already weary of the myth that had developed about the cowboy and tried to describe this man, from his dress to his manner to his duties, as authentically as possible. Compared to what is often depicted in movies and commercials (The Marlboro Man) and western fiction, it presents quite a different picture. Other authors represented are Charlie Siringo, W.S. James, and Andy Adams. For the second edition, Savage wrote a heated Afterward where he condemns the continuance of the mythmaking at the expense of honest history. Those wanting a realistic look at the life of cowboys should look into this book.

We just came back from a visit to our son in Colorado. We happened upon Culinary Colorado and used it as a basis for our own food adventures. Walter never went wrong in anything we checked out. We especially liked the selections in a little Italian deli in Durango that we never would have found or considered on our own. Get it and use it!

Walter goes outside the boundaries of most ordinary guidebooks and brings a touch of panache and her own personal taste to this yummy guide of Colorado restaurants, cooking schools, food festivals and more. Her bias is against "chains" so readers are pointed towards off-beat places they might never find on their own. What makes this book so fun is it's lengthy reviews and backgrounders into the culinary places and people of the state. Definitely a book to have on your shelf if you spend a lot of time in Colorado and like to eat.

We didn't know there were so many culinary adventures in Colorado. The author has researched the state well. We learned a lot about some of our favorite places and also discovered some new ones.

Rubén Cobos' short but monumental "Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish" (1983) was a classic the day it was printed. If you have any interest in the Spanish-speaking cultures of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, this book is a great way to learn something about the dialect without plunging into a difficult linguistic study.

Like Samuel Johnson's dictionary, Cobos's is a book you can sit down and read enjoyably. The entries are not just translations of Spanish words into English. Cobos traces their origin and (in most cases) illustrates their meaning by including them in sample sentences. For instance, "murre" (in standard Spanish, "muy"): "Esta muchita es murre gente" ('This child is very friendly'). Additionally, many words are also explained by the use of proverbs and folk-poems.

Cobos also explains the cultural signficance of about a third of the words in the dictionary. For example, "pitarrilla": "Pitarrilla, f. [Obviously, the dictionary has great value not only (nor even primarily) for the linguist, but for the anthropologist and historian, as well. It is completely free of technical linguistic terminology and accessible to anyone with a basic knowledge of standard Spanish. (I might emphasize that the book is a guide to local usage only and does not include standard Spanish words.) Although the pronunciation of the New Mexico/southern Colorado dialect is relatively standard, Cobos has taken care to indicate divergences where they exist (e.g., "raices" is pronounced "rái-ces", not "ra-íces"). He includes a short historical and linguistic introduction, tracing the four-hundred year evolution of the dialect. Finally, for a kick, at the start of each alphabetical section you'll find a short proverb -- "P. 'Pa pendejo no se necesita mestro' (To be a fool one needs no school)."

A valuable book that sells for a good price. Five stars.

For years, my wife and I had heard people in northern New Mexico speaking Spanish as described in this book, and we believed they were just not educated properly in correct Spanish grammar and vocabulary. Then I found this book. All the sudden, all the odd pronunciations, verb conjugations and vocabulary made sense. This Spanish evolved almost on its own since the 1500's!

My wife, who is from Oaxaca, Mexico, constantly looks to me to interpret for her when we do business with Northern New Mexicans (who refer to themselves as "Españoles", not Hispanics)who speak this dialect of Spanish. Some time ago, we bought furniture from a sales-lady who referred to herself as an "Española". My wife was happy to be attended to in her native tongue, but when the sales lady asked for my wife's "licencia para arrear", I could tell she didn't have a clue. Thanks to this book, I was able to properly interpret it as "drivers license" (not "marriage license" as my wife was inclined to believe).

From a practical standpoint, it's probably not of much use anywhere else in the world, but if you come to northern New Mexico, and you want to converse with the native Spanish-speakers, you'd better come armed with this book!

I recently wrote a book about the history of the towns of New Mexico's Sandia Mountains, and during that time I probably picked this book up two or three times every day.
It is invaluable--loaded with obscure words that no normal Spanish-English dictionary would ever have. It's well-structured, nicely organized, clearly printed, thorough, and as complete as you would ever need it to be.
In its way, it's a sort of linguistic and cultural history of New Mexico and southern Colorado, disguised as a dictionary. Leaf through it and glance at a few words and definitions, and you can't help but learn fascinating things about the people and the places that produced these terms.
If you are a New Mexico student or scholar or writer, you really NEED to have this book. Your work will be incomplete without it.