Mountain Nature

Warren Angus Ferris (1810-1873) was a trapper, cartographer and diarist in the Rocky Mountains from 1830 to 1835. In 1829, he joined the American Fur Company to explore the Rocky Mountains. He kept a journal of his travels which were published as the book Life in the Rocky Mountains (1940), which gives an account of the Platte River Valley, Cache Valley, the area around Salt Lake City, and Snake River Country. Ferris found Native American guides and made a detour into what is today Yellowstone National Park.

Nicknamed 'Mountain Man' by the Sunday Telegraph, James Forrest is the record-breaking adventurer who climbed every mountain in England and Wales in just six months - the fastest ever time. Solo and unsupported, he walked over 1,000 miles and ascended five times the height of Everest during his 446-peak challenge. And he did it all on his days off from work, proving it is possible to integrate an epic adventure into your everyday life.

On the 23rd of May 2019, Hakan Bulgurlu became one of the fortunate few to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. To stand on top of the world’s highest mountain is a humbling experience; to bear witness to nature at its most awe-inspiring and powerful is even more humbling. Bulgurlu’s quest to climb Everest came with a purpose: Making the environment the centre of his ambition to highlight the catastrophic effect climate change is having on our planet, to lead by example and to seek out practical solutions.

The Mountains Are Calling is the exhilarating story of the runners who go to high places. From its wild origins in the Highlands, hill running in Scotland remains as pure and traditional as sport gets. Jonny Muir explores the history and culture of the sport and meets the legends of hill running, who are revered for their extraordinary endurance. As he discovers the insatiable lure of the hills, a calling leads him to the supreme test of mountain running: Ramsay's Round, a continuous loop of 23 of Scotland highest mountains, to be completed within 24 hours.

The Last Blue Mountain is the heart-rending true story of the 1957 expedition to Mount Haramosh in the Karakoram range in Pakistan. With the summit beyond reach, four young climbers are about to return to camp. Their brief pause to enjoy the view and take photographs is interrupted by an avalanche which sweeps Bernard Jillott and John Emery hundreds of feet down the mountain into a snow basin. Rae Culbert and Tony Streather risk their own lives to rescue their friends, only to become stranded alongside them.

In Crisis on Mount Hood, author and emergency room doctor Christopher Van Tilburg looks at the history of America's oldest all-volunteer mountain rescue team, the Hood River Crag Rats, and his own three-decade commitment to search and rescue. Centered on Oregon's iconic 11,249-foot-high Mount Hood, considered by many to be the world's most-climbed glaciated peak, this dramatic narrative leads listeners through a century of life-and-death challenges.

A resonant and timely story about love, loss, and forging a path forward in the aftermath of grief. After tragedy upended the contours of her life, Lauren Kessler, an unflinching immersion journalist, felt compelled to move—to do something, to be somewhere else. So she set out alone on the...

Ripley, an aging German Shepherd Dog, spent her life guarding the wildlife refuge with Max, the best man she’s ever known. But that was before the accident, before he gave her one final job: “Take care of the girls.” And Ripley has done just that—especially for Charlie, the girl Ripley loves even more than peanut butter. Ripley watches over Charlie with dedication, especially when faced with bullies who threaten the refuge. But Ripley is slowing down. She knows dogs don’t last forever.

Against the backdrop of the high-stakes and intensely competitive equestrian sport of show jumping, Finny, a fifteen-year-old girl in California, adopts an emaciated, untrained horse without her parents' knowledge. Soon after adopting Sky, Finny meets Joe, a sixteen-year-old, who has run away from his cruel uncle in Montana.

By the time life had finished hitting Rick Crandall from all sides, he was at the lowest point of his life, both personally and professionally. His wife, Pamela, makes an astute and life-changing suggestion: "Let's get a dog." So begins the story of Emme, a 200-pound Saint Bernard trapped in the body of a five-pound Australian terrier puppy. Soon, Emme and Rick hit the hiking trails around Aspen, Colorado. While she is groomed to be a show dog, it's soon obvious that her heart is in the hills and with Rick, who decides to add more challenging hikes to the mix.

From the award-winning author of Ice Bear: The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon comes an intimate exploration of Alaska's northernmost mountain range with observations on Indigenous cultures, conservation, and intense cross-country travel, all shaped by respect for the land. Follow author Michael Engelhard through tussock-studded tundra for a remarkable tale of bear encounters and white-knuckled river moments, as well as poetic reflections on a vast, untamed landscape.

Shows how to relate to and receive help from the elements, reconnect with nature to access abundance and joy, connect with plants, animals, water, air, and fire Explores don Alberto’s upbringing in a family of yachaks, his initiation, and his personal work to fulfill the Andean...

Original stories of mountain men between 1833 and 1837 traveling from the Missouri River, through the plains and Rocky Mountains, to the Pacific and back, with all the different Indians and Indian wars they observed from the opposite point of view - from Indians themselves, like Zitkala-Sa, in American Indian Stories and Old Indian Legends.

Outdoor journalist James Edward Mills's book The Adventure Gap is a groundbreaking volume that is equal parts adventure story, history, and inspiration as it chronicles the first American all-Black summit attempt on Denali in 2013. Mills uses this momentous expedition as a jumping-off point to explore diversity in the outdoors, from Mathew Henson who stood at the North Pole in 1909 to contemporary adventurers such as polar explorer Barbara Hillary and rock climber Kai Lightner.

The Wild East explores the social, political, and environmental changes in the Great Smoky Mountains during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Although this national park is most often portrayed as a triumph of wilderness preservation, Margaret Lynn Brown concludes that the largest forested region in the eastern United States is actually a recreated wilderness—a product of restoration and even manipulation of the land.

A girl emerges from the woods, starved, ill, and alone...and collapses. Suzanne Blakemore hurtles along the Blue Ridge Parkway, away from her overscheduled and completely normal life, and encounters the girl. As Suzanne rushes her to the hospital, she never imagines how the encounter will change her - a change she both fears and desperately needs. Suzanne has the perfect house, a successful husband, and a thriving family.

The Last River: The Tragic Race for Shangri-la is a breathtaking account of the ill-fated October 1998 expedition of an American whitewater kayaking team who traveled deep into the Tsangpo Gorge in Tibet to run the Yarlung Tsangpo, known in paddling circles as the "Everest of rivers." For Wick...

The Chomolungma Diaries is a true story of ordinary people climbing Mount Everest with a commercial expedition, and preparing for the biggest day of their lives. Imagine your life clipped into a narrow line of cord five miles above the Earth, on the world’s most terrifying ridge walk. This book will bring you just a little bit closer to that experience.

His cheeks are as tender as raw meat on a butcher's block. And those are just the cheeks of his face. As he slumps in the saddle, watching the road disappear into the distance, he aches in parts of his body that he's only just discovering he has. When Mark travels to Ecuador to go hiking and climbing, he discovers a land of dramatic volcanoes rising through the clouds and wide-open horizons rich in history.

As he teetered on a narrow rock ledge, a yak's bellow short of the stratosphere, with a rubber mask strapped to his face, a pair of mittens the size of a sea lion's flippers, and a drop of two kilometres below him, it's fair to say Mark Horrell wasn't entirely happy with the situation he found himself in. He had been an ordinary hiker who had only read books about mountaineering. When he signed up for an organized trek in Nepal with a group of elderly ladies, little did he know that ten years later he would be attempting to climb the world's highest mountain.