Books

The following is excerpted from Paul Souders' new book, Arctic Solitaire: A Boat, A Bay, and the Quest for the Perfect Bear. This is from Chapter Five: A Hole in the Water. Read more…

When I suffered a bicycle injury recently, Mountaineers Books Senior Editor Mary Metz sent me an excerpt from Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage, by the late, great Austrian alpinist Hermann Buhl, the first person to solo an 8,000-meter peak. It was a reminder that even our heroes get injured. (Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage is a classic of mountaineering lore and is being reissued in Mountaineers Books "Legends & Lore" series in September 2018.) Read more…

Gym climbing is a great way to engage your body, mind, and get vertical. With the accessibility of gyms in nearly every state and a high concentration of them in urban areas, you’re never far from crimps, slopers, or jugs. Whether you’re a first-time climber or advanced competitor, these tips will help you stay on the wall. Read more…

In Wildfire: On the Front Lines with Station 8, journalist and author Heather Hansen embeds with Boulder, Colorado's Station 8 fire crew and follows them through an entire season. From these professionals, she learns what it takes to protect us from these ever more frequent conflagrations. She also interviews those who study these fires to report the reasons for them and how we can do a better job of mitigating their destruction. Following is an excerpt from Heather's book. Read more…

What could be better than sitting around a campfire with friends and family, telling stories and making s'mores? In the spirit of National S'mores Day, we caught up with Dave and Ilyssa Kyu, the editors behind Campfire Stories: Tales from America's National Parks, to ask them a few questions.  Read more…

If you spend the time and money to visit one of our nation’s amazing national parks, you will want your time there to be fun for your kids and make lasting memories that your family can recount for years to come.  Here are some of our best ideas to make that desire a reality: Read more…

Following is an excerpt from It Happened Like This: A Life in Alaska, by Adrienne Lindholm. Adrienne's memoir recounts her two decades in Alaska, arriving as a young woman raised on the East Coast, and finding her way in the 49th state, where she has worked for the National Park Service for more than 16 years. It Happened Like This is published by Mountaineers Books. Read more…

We love exploring, especially the wild places that offer a serene tranquility away from it all. Sometimes, though, we get too far away. And that's when tranquility turns into bewilderment. So pack a map and take some tips from Wilderness Navigation by Mike and Robert Burns. Read more…

We sat down with Susan Elderkin to find out her favorite area hikes for young children from her new book Best Hikes with Kids: Western Washington. The following are kid-tested and kid-approved, to help you get your kids out and exploring nature at any age! Read more…

Join us September 20, 2018 to hear from Andrew Mclean, the first person to summit and ski the 'Alaska Family' of peaks Father Denali, Mother Sultanan, and child Mt. Hunter. Read more…

Much to my surprise, upon leaving park headquarters the other day, I walked to my car and discovered an envelope tucked beneath its windshield wipers. Scrawled upon it was the note: “Elk study.” Read more…

Other than for the sailors among us, strong winds are generally annoying. Camping, paddling, skiing, cycling – all better enjoyed without 30+ mile-an-hour gusts. We can layer up for cold and down for the heat. We’ve got Gortex to defeat the rain and snow. But wind often feels relentless in spite of our best efforts to cope with it. Read more…

I have been a recreational kayaker for twenty five years and paddle often.   I kayak on slow moving rivers, ponds, lakes, and protected salt water coves. I continue to improve my skills as I gain even more experience and become involved with various paddling communities.  I have learned that most of what you can do to stay safe while paddling happens off the water. Read more…

June 21, 2018 marks the centennial birthday of Dee Molenaar. At 100 years-old, the legendary mountaineer and 77-year Mountaineers member has built an indelible legacy.  His resume includes pioneering routes on Mt. Rainier, completing the first ascent of a Canadian peak with Senator Robert Kennedy, and sharing a microphone with Sir Edmund Hillary during a radio broadcast.  Read more…

Today is National Nature Photography Day. Mountaineers Books and, especially our conservation imprint, Braided River, works with a number of amazingly talented and dedicated nature photographers. These folks frequently spend long hours alone in the wild capturing images that the rest of us would never see without them. These images have a huge impact on how we come to understand and feel about nature. Often their photos are the only reference we have for faraway places, and they move us to care about those environments. Nature photographers are on the leading edge of connecting us emotionally to the world that we depend on for all of our physical needs and for which degradation in a faraway place  affects the place where we live. Read more…

Summer’s almost here, which means it’s time to put on your bathing suit, mentally prepare yourself for showing your sun-starved skin to the world, and head out to one of Washington State’s many beautiful swimming holes. No matter where you live, you don’t have to go far—there’s over 8,000 lakes and over 70,000 miles of river to choose from. For those of you who live in or near Seattle, here are our favorite swimming holes close to home: Read more…

Heather Hansen is an award-winning environmental reporter and author. Her book, Prophets and Moguls, Rangers and Rogues, Bison and Bears: 100 Years of the National Park Service, published by Mountaineers Books, won the Colorado Authors’ League General Nonfiction award and was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. Read more…

Books can affect us deeply and in meaningful ways. Many of us have that feeling about one or more books we consider treasures. Because of that, Mountaineers Books and our authors receive fan mail on a fairly regular basis. The following is correspondence that Jim Herrington, author and photographer of The Climbers (© 2017), received recently from Mitch Solomon. We thought Mitch's letter was touching and, with his permission, that you would enjoy it, too.  Read more…

Some kids love hiking; others would rather stay home and read a book (I have one of each). Once my unenthusiastic hiker is actually on the trail, his attitude usually improves, thanks to some of the tricks I’ve learned over the years: Read more…

This June we welcome the Heather Hansen, the author of Wildfire: On the Front Lines with Station 8  from Mountaineers Books. She will take us on a journey through her experience after embedding with Boulder, CO wildland firefighters and share her lessons on what more we can do to help prevent such devastating wildfires. Read more…

Northern California is home to the southern reaches of the California Cascades, and this rugged volcanic landscape contains some of the most beautiful waterfalls in the western United States. Here are four of my favorites that are featured in my hiking guidebooks, all linked by CA Highway 89: Read more…

For hikers, Montana is close to heaven. Thousands of miles of trails lead to scenic mountain lakes, wildflower-covered meadows, and dramatic viewpoints. All winter long (and our winters are really long) Montanans eagerly await the snowmelt when we can once again head for our beloved backcountry. But the melting snows also signal the time when our state’s famous bruins awaken, looking to replenish the fat layer lost during their winter sleep. We humans typically have the opposite seasonal timing on fat layers – another excellent reason to hit the trails. Read more…

Ever thought about backpacking sections of the Pacific Crest Trail in Northern California? Philip Kramer, author of the new book Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail: Northern California (Mountaineers Books, 2018) shares key information in this wide-ranging interview. Read more…

#GiveBIG is always an exciting time for us at The Mountaineers and this year was no exception. Thanks to your contributions, you helped us stretch beyond our match goal and together we raised $27,000 to support The Mountaineers, Mountaineers Books, and the community of volunteers who teach us to explore, connect, and advocate. Read more…

Watercolor is the most quickly executed painting medium and has been used for centuries because of its ease and speed of use and also for the effects than can be achieved with it. Read more…

You may have hiked to a couple fire lookouts already, sweating your way up a steep trail until you reach an historic wooden cabin perched on a mountaintop. But here are a few things you might not know about lookouts as hiking destinations. Read more…

The Nautilus Book Awards, with the mission of "Better Books for a Better World," celebrates and honors books that support conscious living and green values, high-level wellness, positive social change, and spiritual growth.  Read more…

Each week we bring you a personal story from one of our members. For our member profile this week we talked to.... Read more…

“We need a book. But first you need to see this place.” So began my conversation with Debbie Miller and Hugh Rose in a bar in Fairbanks on my first day back to civilization after an all-too-brief rafting trip in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Debbie, Hugh, and I had collaborated before. Through numerous past publishing and outreach efforts we had strived to prevent oil drilling in America’s Arctic. This time our discussions revolved around 2.1 million acres of the Chugach National Forest in southwestern Alaska proposed as a wilderness study area. This stemmed from the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) passed in 1980, the largest lands conservation act in U.S. history and the law that has defined much of Alaska’s public lands debates. The fate of this wilderness study area established in 1980 was expected to be resolved in a few years, yet it is still in limbo decades later. Read more…

Here’s a dilemma: How does a publishing company that is deeply invested in advocating for environmental conservation deal with the fact that the product they sell relies on using trees? This is something that we here at Mountaineers Books are intensely aware of. Approximately four billion trees are cut down every year around the world just to produce paper products, accounting for about 35 percent of the total harvest. Even though 2.3 billion seedlings are planted each year in the US alone, the fact remains that the timber and paper industries, and by extension the publishing industry, have a significant impact on the environment. Read more…