Books, Outdoors & Nature, Ecosystems, Alpine

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John Muir
The Mountains of California
by Sierra Club Books (Paperback)

John Muir’s ebullient spirit and love of nature infuse these accounts of visiting Yosemite Valley, Kings Canyon, sequoia groves, and Mount Whitney. Blending keen observations of flora, geography, and geology, the natural forces that shape the landscape, and the changing seasons, Muir paints a timeless portrait of the wilderness he called “the Range of Light, the most divinely beautiful of all the mountain chains I have ever seen.” Also included are visits to two famous Cascades peaks, Mount Shasta and Mount St. Helens

Peter Marchand
North Woods: An Inside Look at the Nature of Forests in the Northeast
by Appalachian Mountain Club Books (Paperback)

Beyond identifying plant species, North Woods examines the many influences that shape the ecology of northern forests and alpine areas.

David B. Williams
Naturalist's Guide to Canyon Country
by Falcon (Paperback)

A Naturalist's Guide to Canyon Country is the perfect companion if you plan to explore the northern Colorado Plateau, that vast province that encompasses eastern Utah, far western Colorado, and sections of northern Arizona and New Mexico. It is a comprehensive and beautifully illustrated trailside refernce to plants, animals, and geology of an area that includes nine national parks and monuments. With this guide in hand, you will gain a sympathetic understanding of the desert ecosystems that make up the region. You will learn about the battle between uplift and erosion that has sculpted the sandstone fins of Arches National Park and the needles of Canyonlands. You will learn to differentiate between prickly pear and claret cup cacti and between the tracks of striped and spotted skunks. You will find out how the lizard uses its tail as a first line of defense. In short, you will learn to appreciate this remarkable land as you never did before.

Timothy Silver
Mount Mitchell and the Black Mountains: An Environmental History of the Highest Peaks in Eastern America
by The University of North Carolina Press (Paperback) (Release Date: 2007-01-17)

Each year, thousands of tourists visit Mount Mitchell, the most prominent feature of North Carolina's Black Mountain range and the highest peak in the eastern United States. Environmental historian Timothy Silver explores the long and complicated history of this intriguing landscape, drawing on both the historical record and his experience in the Black Mountains as a backpacker and fly fisherman. He chronicles the geological and environmental forces that created the mountains, then traces their history of environmental change and human intervention from the days of Indian-European contact to today. Among the many tales Silver recounts is that of Elisha Mitchell, the renowned geologist and University of North Carolina professor for whom Mount Mitchell is named, who fell to his death there in 1857. But nature's stories--of forest fires, chestnut blight, competition among plants and animals, insect invasions, and, most recently, airborne toxins and acid rain--are also part of ...

David Scott Gilligan
In the Years of the Mountains: Exploring the World's High Ranges in Search of Their Culture, Geology, and Ecology
by Da Capo Press (Paperback)

For the past ten years David Gilligan has climbed all of the major mountain ranges in the world. His resulting narrative, In the Years of the Mountains, takes readers to the highest places on four continents for an up-close consideration of the cultural, geological, and biological make up of mountains. From the Swiss Alps to the Himalayas, on to New Zealand, and then back to the North American cordillera, Gilligan treats readers to adventure mixed with science and history. This book is an ode to the essence of high mountains, but it is also about wishing desperately for a good picket placement on a steep snowfield, with a yawning crevasse just feet below; about watching a pious man offer burnt juniper to the gods; and about being alone on a crystalline white summit during a temperature inversion, with purple-gray clouds spreading out like an atmospheric ocean in all directions as far as the eye can see. From a master mountaineer, explorer, and university professor, In the Years ...

Ann Zwinger, Beatrice E. Willard
Land Above the Trees: A Guide to American Alpine Tundra
by Univ of Arizona Pr (Paperback)

Christopher A. Conte
Highland Sanctuary: Environmental History In Tanzanias Usambara Mountains (Ohio University Press Series in Ecology and History)
by Ohio University Press (Paperback)

For More Than A Century, The World has recognized the extraordinary biological diversity of the forests of Tanzania's Usambara Mountains. As international attention has focused on forest conservation, farmers, foresters, biologists, and the Tanzanian state have realized that only complex negotiations will save these treasured, but rapidly disappearing, landscapes. Highland Sanctuary unravels the complex interactions among agriculture, herding, forestry, the colonial state, and the landscape itself. In his examination of the region's history of ecological transformation, Christopher Conte demonstrates how these forces have combined to create an ever-changing mosaic of forest and field. His study illuminates the debate over conservation, arguing that contingency and chance, the stuff of human history, have shaped forests in ways that rival the power of nature. In Highland Sanctuary, the forest becomes part of human history, rather than something outside of it. Highland Sanctuary ...

Joseph Kelsey
Wyoming's Wind River Range (Wyoming Geographic Series, No 2)
by Farcountry Press (Paperback)

Mountain Biodiversity: A Global Assessment
by CRC (Paperback)

This book is the result of the first global conference on mountain biodiversity, and is a contribution to the International Year of Mountains, 2002. The Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment program is a Special Target Area Region project of DIVERSITAS (UNESCO and UNEP). Biological diversity is essential for the integrity of mountain ecosystems and this dependency is likely to increase as environmental (climate) and social conditions change. Steep terrain and climate, and severe land-use pressure cause mountain ecosystems to rank among the world's most endangered landscapes. The 28 chapters in this book represent research on the biological riches in all major mountain ranges of the world, and synthesize existing knowledge on mountain biodiversity - from diversity of bacteria, plants and animals to human diversity. The book is divided into five sections: an introduction providing an overview of the issues; plant and animal diversity; climate change and mountain biodiversity; ...

Gustavo Martinelli
Campos de altitude (Portuguese Edition)
by Editora Index (Unknown Binding)

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