Bart Smith

This is a very nice book. If you've only ever seen parts of the AT in the Smokies (for example), this will give you a glimpse at the very different terrain that the northern half of the AT crosses. I wish, though, a couple of things. First, the book is much smaller than I expected: about 7 1/2" x 5 1/2". And I had to keep flipping to the back of the book to get the captions to the photos. It would've been a lot nicer to have them on or near the photos themselves. Having said this, I may just have to take a look at the author/photographer's other photo books.… (más)

I recommend this book to those wanting quality photos of the Pacific west and to those who are interested in reading about hiking, especially backpacking.
The large format of the book allows the high quality photos to be appreciated. The photos are not only technically excellent but the artistic quality is also of high caliber.

The photographer took 5 or more years to capture the images, wanting to be on location at the appropriate time of year and time of day for each place.
The text is designed to follow a single year hike.
The husband and wife team of hikers are very good writers, both contributing.
Writing style is clear, capturing both the beauty and austerity of the geography hiked through, and the emotions it elicits along with emotions prompted by the trail and weather conditions experienced.
The hikers really did the train in one event.
The text ends with a half a dozen paragraphs summing up what the experience is like from a thru-hiker's experience, a summary that mirrors those I have noticed in other thru-hikers experiences.
This is a very well illustrated and written book.

There is a very minor mis-match between the photos and the text, as the photos were taken over many years for optimum quality coverage.
A number of those photos were taken from places in different seasons than a thru-hiker, such as the writers of this book would have experienced.
Some photos were of places not visited by the Pacific Crest Trail, such as Image Lake in Washington state. However that lake would have been just a ten mile detour off the PCT trail to visit, but it would not have been seen from the PCT itself and was not seen by the writers of the text, especially not at the season the photo was taken.

All in all a very good book.… (más)