Colorado Books

Interesting old photos of Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, side-by-side with modern photos taken from the exact spot and perspective as the old ones, showing the changes that have occurred in the past 50-100yrs. The photographer, Mic Clinger, took a lot of time and energy to get the views right, and it shows. Great book! As someone who lives near the area, I heartily recommend it!

We vacation in Estes Park every summer and we enjoyed the book very much. It's interesting to see the history and read the stories of Estes.

Time well spent reading this well investigated and reported step through history. To be able to see what we missed before our time, and then to see what it is now, makes one wonder if only....The photos were right on target as far as placement and the history was fasinating. It made you want to go and explore the area, or at least dream of being there. I have been to this area and know of its wonder and beauty. Take the time to read and wonder.

There are 98 groups of pictures, old and new. The book is sectioned by areas: Estes Valley Scenes and Sites, including the familiar, but also the mostly forgotten. The Village. Hotels, Lodges and Ranches, plus two sections on Rocky Mountain National Park, East and West.

The text is by Dr. James Pickering, who has written numerous histories of the area, including the excellent "This Blue Hollow" in 1999, about the early years of Estes Park.

The old photographs in the current book come from a number of sources, but most of the new ones, which duplicate exactly the viewpoint of the older photo, are by Mic Clinger, who has been painstaking in finding the precise vantage point, often with some difficulty.

If the history of the area interests you at all, this is a book you will enjoy. And it will invite you to ask a question: What has been gained, and what has been lost forever?

Tad Nichols (memory eternal!) left us a treasure: powerful images of a beautiful canyon now buried under water and mud. The art is amazing, very much in the tradition of Ansel Adams. The loss is stunning: it's difficult to imagine how even hardened landwasters could have condemned this wonder to a watery grave. Now all that's left to us are photographs and memories ... of a world most of us will never have the privilege to see. Enjoy!

This is the best collection of photos I have seen on the now drowned Glen Canyon. Unlike some other books covering the area, this collection was clearly taken by a professional photographer. These pictures could easily be mistaken for Ansel Adams and I believe Mr. Nichols lists him as a big influence on his work. If you are like me and a lover of canyon country, it will definitely make you a little wistful thinking that this area has been lost--probably irretrievably. I just wish there were a comparable collection of color photos of Glen Canyon to supplement this wonderful work.

Anyone will find the pictures breathtaking. If you have an interest in the southwest rivers and canyons you will especially enjoy this book. If you are interested in seeing what they stole from us by the construction of Glen Canyon Dam then this book is required reading. Hayduke lives!

I have been researching Glen Canyon and Lake Powell for years now, for a book I'm working on, and my wife had always taken a very passive interest in what I was doing. She'd listen to me talk and add a comment or two, but it wasn't until I got this book that she realized just what I'd been rambling about.
The photos are just like that.
The black-and-white photos of sinuos, twisting, sandstone places like Dungeon Canyon and the Cathedral-in-the-Desert will take your breath away; they will make you ache to see the places the photos are of, and then they will break your heart when you realize all those places are currently underwater.
Whatever your position on Lake Powell and Glen Canyon is--whether you think that Glen Canyon Dam is a giant, concrete Satan, or that it's a great source of employment, water, and electricity for the people of the West, you will have to admit these photos are beautiful, and of a beautiful place, and that something irreplaceable has been drowned and hidden away.
By all means, get this book.
And get Eleanor Inskip's full-color "The Colorado River through Glen Canyon: Before Lake Powell." Both books are excellent.

The poetry in this book is nothing short of astonishing. Waldrup's words will take your breath away, over and over again. This is one of the most original, un-cliched collections of poetry I have read in a very long time. The poetry is deeply intellectual and intensely visceral all at the same time. I am so in love with this collection that I have tried to pass it along to everyone in several poetry workshops, read aloud from it at every opportunity, photocopied poems for friends ... everything short of handing out copies to strangers on the street. This first collection will blow your mind. If you care at all about poetry, read this book.

It is rare that poetry moves me in such an unshakeable way. This work takes on new meaning each reading and sings when spoken outloud.

This book is woderful. It uses language in magical ways. It is difficult to believe that the book is Waldrep's first collection of poetry. It is that good. It is memorable. It is memorable. It is memorable. What more can one ask for?

I buy 2 or 3 books of poetry a month. Most collections have several outstanding poems with the rest filler or unremarkable. I forget them in a week, but Waldrep's scholastic background in history illuminates. He uses language with attention to sound and meaning. In this liturgy (and it is an arc of faith), metaphor and conversation alternate--flexible, readable, enjoyable. This goes on the shelf next to Bierds, Hart, Hirshfield, Merrill.

An absolute must for a raft trip down the river. The book provides some worthwhile facts, photos and images to provide even the youngest traveler with a certain base of information prior to making the trip.

The waterproof pages make the book even more useful, as I witnessed a number of people reviewing it throughout the day on the river without concern for damage.

Provides an excellent sequence of maps useful to people running the river plus considerable background info on notable past river runners. Published on water resistant material. Very useful!

Outstanding and essential guide for running the rapids and for general information about the Grand Canyon from the Colorado River perspective. Good geology, history, and river map information

This was the perfect map to take on a river rafting trip down the Grand Canyon. It had a map of every mile of the canyon, with locations of the rapids, side canyons, points of interest, and essays on the history, the lives of canyon characters, the regional anthropology, the plant and animal life, the geology, and a guide to photography. Very appropriately the guide is sturdy and waterproof.

Beautifully illustrated story of family 100 years ago moving westward to Colorado and making a new home and battling the elements. Saving a family of geese, one injured, from a rough winter, and staying committed to each other thru rough times makes story engrossing and rewarding.

Grandfather's Christmas Tree is a beautifully written and illustrated non-fiction book. The story is about the author's grandfather and a tall spruce tree outside his home. The illustrations are done in oil paints. This is a wonderful story about family and should be included in everyone's Christmas reading collection.

Beautifully illustrated story of family 100 years ago moving westward to Colorado and making a new home and battling the elements. Saving a family of geese, one injured, from a rough winter, and staying committed to each other thru rough times makes story engrossing and rewarding.

This is a true story about the author's grandfather. Over 100 years ago his grandfather moved west to Colorado to start his family. All around the land was coved in spruce trees. One winter the weather is really bad and they think they will have to cut all the tress for fire wood. 2 geese have made their home under one tree and one is hurt and can't move on. The grandmother in the story begs the grandpa to leave the tree a little longer. He does and the story has a happy ending.

This book can be valuable as a teaching tool. It is a book that teaches the value of family, material things, memories, nature, and history. Life cycles, the seasons, and holidays are so important to the family in the book.
I would recommend this book to others. The book is a great holiday book but the themes in the story should be taught year around.

This book is just what I was looking for a reference book in the field and home. It has both photos and drawings of each plant. One plant per page and the pages are nicely grouped by flower color which is visible on the page edges as well. The indexes, as usual in nature books of this type, have both common name and Latin name of each plant. Included are black and white diagrams of leave types and flower head patterns with glossary. Each item listed has a synopsis of flowers, leaves, what"~ kind of immediate environment it grows in, "Life Zone(s)" i.e. foothills, alpine, etc., and flowering time.

Nice guide, grouping by color helpful for identification. Could use more detailed anatomical descriptions and photos are a bit small.

I grew up and live in the summer in a Colorado ghost town at 9,000 ft. altitude surrounded by 13,000 ft. mountains. This is the best guide for Colorado alpine flowers I have ever seen. Great illustrations, fine explanatory notes - a must have for alpine flower afficianados.

I go to Colorado backpacking, rafting and climbing every summer and of all the field guides I have ever had, this one is the best! It has very easy to use color format so you can find any flower in a matter of seconds. KEEP IT HANDY!

Both books serve as the focal point of our coffee table. I find myself thumbing through one whenever I need a 5 minute vacation! Thanks for the therapy!

As a fourth generation Coloradan, I admit to having a natural skepticism whenever I initially feast my eyes upon a photography book that, by its title, is intended to 'capture' the beauty, majesty and unique qualities of the Rockies. My close attachment to the Rocky Mountains makes me sometimes feel that most photographers will fall short. WRONG assumption! I'm delighted to report that Sue Neider has successfully captured the heart and soul of the Colorado Rockies in her latest book in honest, forthright, unique and spectacular images. 'High Country: Touring he Colorado Rockies' absolutely affected me as I moved from page to page---and made me feel as though Ms. Neider must have spent her life out here, which I've learned is not the case. Her latest book was like having a personalized guided tour of the Rockies and I recommend it 100% to readers living anywhere---including others like me who have spent their entire lives embracing mountains and scenery in the Rocky Mountains region. Terrific viewing, excellent text, and an experience I will revisit over and over. This is a book that I am proud to own!

Three years ago, Susan Neider's photographic and literary guide to the Colorado Plateau, Color Country, moved me to write a review on this site in the hope that others would discover her work as well. Her new guide to the Colorado Rockies, High Country, proves that Color Country was no quirk. If there could remain any doubt from the choice and intensity of her photographs that Neider's accomplishment is to understand the landscape and what that means to the human experience, here's how she, in a few words, shows that she gets it: "The peaks are here," she says of the surroundings, "so are the valleys. So is the range of vision that draws me away from an intense and restless inner self." And that's it. Neider's descriptions, advice, and photos all reflect a passion rarely found in guidebooks. Those who want more than a passingly pleasant experience with the places Neider visits would take her, or at least her books, along.

I tend to carry a lot of books when I travel, so I'm careful about what I pack. But Neider's guides are essential travel gear and take the place of a lot of other books I might have to take along. I learned this when she published Color Country a few years ago and wore out my first copy traipsing around Utah with it, planning trips and choosing places to visit. Now she's done the same thing, in spades, for Colorado with High Country and it's a welcome addition to my travel library, too. I'm a nut about geology, but a lot of what is written is hard to read. But Neider's a first-rate explainer and provides just what you need to understand the landscape. And then there are her pictures. Direct, clean and engaging, the same clarity evident in her writing shines through in her photographs. If they weren't so inspirational I'd be tempted to put my own camera away, knowing I'll never get the same feeling of a place she manages to capture so well. Her photo tips keep me shooting, though. I think, as with her first book, I'll be giving a lot of copies of this one to friends who are traveling west.
Brava, Neider, once again!
Alex Connor
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

I read this book for the first time about ten years ago. On re-reading it, I experienced the same general mood I remembered from the first time around: sadness.

When the men in the Corps of Discovery returned to St. Louis after their two-and-a-half year journey to the Pacific Northwest, they were amply rewarded, with money and land, by a gushing Congress. All of them but one, that is. York, William Clark's slave, had traveled with all the rest of the men. He's mentioned occasionally in the journals written by some of the expedition's members (not the least of whom are Lewis and Clark). He pulled his weight in the physical toil of the journey; he appears to have been a good hunter; his blackness, a fascinating novelty to a few of the Indian tribes the Corps encountered, seems to have been a cultural ice-breaker on at least one occasion; and he was accepted as a bona fide member by the other Corpsmen, given that there are no negative comments made of him by any of the journal writers and that he was given a vote equal to any other Corps member's on two separate occasions. Yet, on the Corps' return to civilization, York became invisible again: a man with no last name, a slave, a piece of property. Chattel.

So it is with the invisibles of history, the people who our cultural blindspots just won't allow us to see. For too many years, blacks and Indians have been the invisibles in US history. It's as if they never existed. They vanish without leaving a ripple on the pond, and this is incredibly sad.

That's why In Search of York is such an important book, because in it Robert Betts tried to overcome cultural blindness by painstakingly searching out and documenting as much information about York as he could. Needless to say, what emerges is more of a silhouette than a portrait. There simply isn't a lot of available information about York. But in the process, Betts (as well as James Holmberg, who ends the book with an historical essay on York) accomplishes two noteworthy things.

First, his research underscores the strangely schizophrenic relations between masters and slaves in antebellum America. York became Clark's servant when both were still boys. They grew up together, felt affection for one another, and served together on an adventure that could've only made them closer. But afterwards, back in proper society, Clark immediately reverted to the role of master, complained mightily that York had become surly and uppity, even daring to ask for his freedom, and didn't hesitate at all to hire York out to hard taskmasters as a form of punishment. Clark eventually did free York, but only a decade after the expedition. The strangeness of the relationship between York and Clark is not unrepresentative of the love/hate attitude many masters felt for their slaves. But it's still startling.

The second noteworthy feature of this book is Betts' exploration of how York (and, by implication, many other black Americans) was made invisible by caricature. In the novels and "history" texts about the Lewis and Clark expedition published during the first half of the 20th century, York is usually depicted in ways that conform to the racist stereotypes of the day. He comes across as thick-witted but jolly--your typical happy negro servant. He's portrayed as a randy stud who sired half-breed children with every Indian tribe the Corps encountered. Understandable but equally false are the latter revisionist attempts to transform York into a hero who was one of the expedition's most valuable members. There's absolutely no evidence for any of these portraits of York, negative or positive, and the real York drowns in them.

Robert Betts and James Holmberg have done more in this sad but enlightening book than shed some light on a specific historical invisible. They've also brought the cultural blindspots that creates invisibles to our attention, and in doing so have hopefully helped all of us to open our eyes just a bit wider.

I loved the way the author cleared the air on others who wrote about York in a negative way. The speculations about facts that are not known about York make a lot of sense. The footnotes alone were very informative. Great reading.

There's some good information about York on the web, but the best source is the biography In Search of York. This fascinating and well-illustrated book brings together all that is known of York. It is not only a great book about York, but one of the best books in the L&C literature.

This was the only book I could find about the slave who went to the Pacific with Lewis & Clark. It was published by Colorado Associated University Press in 1985. Exellent foundation for further research on York. very readable with good illustrations & footnotes.

Behrendt's account of his winterover and subsequent traverse is a very interesting read, and most importantly, a very relevant contribution to the history of Antarctic science. It shows the clash between the old generation of explorers rooted in the "Heroic Age" with the younger generation of scientists, ultimately marking the beginning of the "Scientific Age" in Antarctic exploration.

The book is reasonably well-written although in a strange style: a mixture throughout of diary entries from 1957 and current commentaries. The narrative about the science and logistics is interesting enough, but the real heart of the book is the battle between the scientists and Captain Finn Ronne of the U.S. Navy. Captain Ronne, who wrote his own version of the IGY expedition at Ellsworth Station, appears to have been a completely arbitrary martinet, a self-serving dictator and political string-puller, and a bad-tempered paranoid and coward. He repeatedly put the expedition in danger by his refusal to provide equipment. He censored much of the communication in and out. He insisted that the scientists share dishwashing and other duties even when they were barely able to complete their scientific assignments. He evidently believed that the Navy support team of 30 or so men had more important things to do than assist the scientists, even though the sole purpose of the whole expedition was scientific. The sad tale of how he killed two emperor penguins 'in the most brutal way imaginable' is enough to turn one's stomach.

There are parallels, as Behrendt notes, with Captain Queeg of the Caine Mutiny. Unfortunately in the nonfictional world of the Navy, Ronne's outrageous behavior, although known to his superiors, apparently went unpunished.

The characterization of other individuals in the book is rather thin. But I would strongly recommend the book.

The title is very appropriate for Behrendt's diary of events at Ellsworth Station on the Weddell Sea margin of the Filchner Ice Shelf and their long geophysical traverse as far south as the Dufek Massif during IGY (1956-1958). The diary, that of a graduate student geophysicist and neophyte Antarctican, is made much more interesting by the running commentary from one of Antarctica's most accomplished, still active, scientists. The underlying plot describes a group of young scientists trying to cope with a system designed for the Navy and the harsh realities of exploring an unknown part of Antarctica. Many of the stories are amusing and almost unbelievable; they show the stress of wintering over and working in harsh conditions. I am amazed at how much was accomplished by Behrendt and other pioneers in the IGY program who worked with the relatively primitive equipment of the time. We need to hear more of their stories!

Behrendt's book is an interesting and rewarding read on several levels. At the core of the book are the extremely complete field notes of a 20-something scientist-adventurer on an exploratory journey into an unmapped part of Antarctica during the 1957 International Geophysical Year. Interspersed with this narrative are the reflections of the same man from a vantage point 40 years in the future. Part history, part science, part an examination of expedition psychology, this book will be of interest to a wide audience.

Funny, horny, passionate, insightful and a damn good read!

Foreman gives testosterone a good name!

This is Earth First! founder, Dave Foreman's first novel. Set partly in New Mexico's Diablo National Forest and partly in southeastern Arizona, Foreman's natural descriptions read as if they were drawn from his own field notes. This story is as much about commitment to wild places as it is about survival.

Interestingly, Foreman's novel is similar to Barbara Kingsolver's current bestseller, PRODIGAL SUMMER (2000), in many respects. Both novels involve sensual love affairs that unfold in nature. Whereas Kingsolver's lovers, Deanna Wolfe (a forest ranger) and Eddie Bondo (a hunter) debate coyotes, Foreman's lovers, MaryAnne McClellen (a wildlife ecologist) and Jack Hunter (a burned-out, Sierra Club lobbyist) protect Mexican wolves. Like Deanna, MaryAnne understands: "If life in all its fecund, blooming, buzzing, beautiful diversity is to survive, we humans must find within ourselves the generosity of spirit and the greatness of heart to make room for the full flowering of other species and natural life processes" (p. 176). Kingsolver even lives in Tucson, where parts of Foreman's novel unfold.

Jack Hunter is a complicated character. No longer a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., Hunter has become "a hard-drinking, sullen horseshoer in a backwater nowhere;" yet he remains "a man born to greatness" (p. 206). When confronted with Forest Service logging plans and saving the lobos, "Hunter knew he couldn't run any more," Foreman writes. "It was time to stick his spear in the ground and fight for home. He saw the grand cottonwoods and bouncy stream of Stowe Creek Meadow. He saw the tall ancient pines of Mondt Park. He saw the wolves of Davis Prairie. That was what was real. That was what was important. That was what made his life worth living . . . he would fight for it now. No matter what the cost" (p. 200).

Dave Forman has written a howling-good first novel which, like Kingsolver's, I recommend to those who share a love for wild places.

G. Merritt

This was a wild read. Sex, romance, wilderness, wolves, good guys, bad guys, and a moral to the story. The story is about those who love the west and do battle to protect the land and its wildlife. Many of the characters and events are probably emulations from the author's own life that has been dedicated to the protection of wilderness and wildlife. If you want to gain a sense about why some people are willing to devote their lives to the wild then read this book. When you are done, choose your place to stand and defend.

Having moved to the New Mexico outback myself a few years ago with the notion that cowboys and ranchers were noble and strong caretakers of the land, I was shocked to learn about the whole public land multiple use system and what arrogant cretins the abusers of it really are. Dave Foreman has ripped the masks off every wise-use, militia belonging, united nations fearing, and custom-and-culture ranting local rural resident and revealed them for the ignorant, bombastic yahoos they really are. I hope I live long enough to someday hear the howl of a lobo here. This book let me dream that might someday come true.