Description:
Drawing on more than 40 years of experience in the high country, photographer John Cleare has paired some of his finest images with inspired essays from renowned mountaineers to produce Distant Mountains, a tour among some of the world's most spectacular peaks. The writing--impressively engaging for a large-photography format--combines the genre's contemporary and classic writers, from Nicholas Crane, recipient of the 1993 Royal Scottish Geographical Society's Mungo Park medal, to late African explorer H.W. Tilman. A host of other notables fill the pages, telling of ascents in Scotland, the Alps, Patagonia, east Africa, the Canadian Rockies, India, Pakistan, the Peruvian Andes, the Pyrenees, the southwestern United States, and, of course, Nepal. Distant Mountains is more an inspirational photographic and literary showcase than a guidebook, although a brief factfile is tucked at the end of each essay section. The factfiles include a map and background of the mountain region described, recommended access, and climbing and trekking ideas--enough to motivate the serious mountaineer to further inquiry. There is plenty here to elevate the reader to the high snows, but rather than provide a fresh look at the great peaks and those who climb, it maintains a retrospective feel throughout. Still, this is an engaging work, sure to catapult readers from the armchair into the foothills. --Byron Ricks
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