ABOUT THE BOOK
Alpine Americas is a mountaineer’s tour of the 10,000-mile range of peaks from the Arctic to Patagonia through the lens of renowned outdoor photographer Olaf Sööt and in the words of writer and climber Don Mellor.
The western edge of the Western Hemisphere is a nearly continuous lineup of mountains, one of the longest features on the planet. From the treeless slopes of Alaska’s Brooks Range, down through McKinley National Park, across the sun-bleached sandstone of the American deserts, and on into South America’s magnificent Andes and lonely Tierra del Fuego, the book covers it all.
Alpine Americas is more than stunning, action-packed mountain photography. Alongside is an elegant text that explores the places from all perspectives — geologic, historical, philosophical — as it takes readers up the cold wind-swept ridges of Denali or down into the caldron of a smoking Mexican volcano.
Each mountain grouping is a different chapter, and each chapter focuses on a single element of what the place means to us. In the Brooks Range, it’s all about tranquility and the reassurance of seasonal patterns. The Canadian Rockies is where the rock shows its character through the snow and where climbers have built a saga more than a century old. Way to the south, in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, it’s the chaos and conflict of the natural elements — angry winds and big weather — as the jagged landscape thrusts upward from the cold salt sea.
Most of us never get the chance to feel for ourselves the crunch of crampon points on a glacier or revel in the welcome warmth of a morning sunburst over a rock ridge after a shivering bivouac. But all of us are adventurers at heart, whether we trek for ourselves to the base of the big mountains or simply enjoy them from afar. With Don Mellor’s inspirational words and Olaf Sööt’s magical photographs, Alpine Americas is a celebration of the western world’s majestic high places.
Don Mellor
Hardcover, 12.” x 13.3” landscape: 256 pages; 254 images, including 15 double page spreads. Price $50.00 plus shipping and handling.