Along New Mexico's Continental Divide Trail [Paperback]

William Stone (Photographer), Tom Till (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2001 | Series: Continental Divide Trail

The Continental Divide Trail stretches across five states from Canada to Mexico--and the segment that winds through New Mexico is incredibly diverse, beautiful, and remote. In an engaging style well-known to his readers, David D. Patterson writes of his experiences hiking and mountain biking his way across the 750 miles of the trail that winds through this beautiful state. Photographer Tom Till captures the incredible diversity of New Mexico's landscapes, including lush national forests, broad deserts, and rugged volcanic bluffs.

Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: Westcliffe Publishers (January 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565793463
• ISBN-13: 978-1565793460
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,138,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tom Till is one of America's most published photographers. Over 150,000 of his images have appeared in print since 1977. In 1998, Till opened the Tom Till Gallery in Moab, Utah. Till's images depict landscape, nature, history, and travel subjects worldwide, including all fifty states and nearly sixty countries overseas.
Till's stock photography images have been featured by National Geographic Magazine, The New York Times, Outside Magazine, Canon Copiers, Delta Airlines, The New Yorker Magazine, Life Magazine, Browntrout Calendars, Eastman Kodak, Reader's Digest, Rand McNally, MGM, Arizona Highways, Lonely Planet, and thousands of others.
An exhibit of his images of UNESCO World Heritage Sites has been traveling the world for almost three years, with stops in Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen, Geneva and Oslo, among others. 
Though Till has been know as a master of the large format (4x5) camera and film for over 30 years, he has  switched to 35mm digital Canon equipment.  Recent trips have taken him to  South Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Viet Nam, Denmark, Sweden, and Slovenia,  and numerous sites in the United States.  A 35-year resident of Moab, Utah, Till has one of the largest photo libraries in existence of the Four Corners region.
Profiles about Till have appeared in Backpacker Magazine, Outdoor Photographer Magazine, Camera & Darkroom Magazine, and many other publications. Also numerous conservation and environmental groups have used Till's photos to galvanize support and illustrate their publications. Till was awarded Arizona Highways Photographer of the Year in 1996, the NANPA/Guilfoyle award for landscape photography in 1994, and was named one of the ten best landscape photographers by Nature's Best Magazine. Till received a special award from The Nature Conservancy in 1998. In 2006, Till was awarded the prestigious NANPA Fellow Award for 20 years of excellence in nature photography. Till is one of only a few landscape photographers to receive the honor, and the only Utahan. Till was also featured the book "World's Best Photographers: Landscape." Also in 2006, Till was inducted into the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Featured in the book World's Best Landscape Photographers: Landscape, Till is also the sole photographer for over 30 books.
Mikenna Clokey, Tom's daughter, is a journalist and professional river guide in the Grand Canyon and on other rivers. Tom's son Bryce is a junior at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, and a member of the Westminster golf team.
Till's other interests are movies, baseball, the Beach Boys, cosmology, rock and roll, and the television series Lost.
"I have a great job, and I feel very lucky and blessed to spend my life in the world's most beautiful places. The first, and biggest thrill, is being in the field all the time. Although I get a great deal of personal satisfaction and fun from my work, photography is really about sharing what you are experiencing with others not lucky or patient enough to be there themselves. It's also about noticing things everyone else passes by. The other great moments are the 25 or so "Christmases" I have yearly when my film comes back from the lab, and the thrill I still get from seeing my work in print," says Till.


BOOKS BY TOM TILL    (text author in parentheses)

1987     Colorado: Images from Above
1988     Outcroppings   (John McPhee)
1989     Utah: Compass Guide  (Tom Wharton)
1990     Utah Magnificent Wilderness   (Wallace  Stegner)
1991     New Jersey (Bill Bradley)
1992     American Southwest
1993     Visions of the Colorado Plateau
1995     Visions of the North
1996     The Woven Spirit of the Southwest
Sacred Images
Utah Slickrock Country
Utah Wildflowers
Utah Reflections
1997     Utah: A Centennial Celebration  (Brooke Williams)
1999    The Colorado Plateau: The Land and the Indians
Along New Mexico's Continental Divide Trail
New Mexico's Continental Divide Trail
New Mexico Wilderness
Always in Season
2000    Utah: Then and Now  (Ted Wilson)
Seasons in the Rockies
2001    Great Ghost Towns of the West  (Teresa Jordan)
In the Land of Moab
2004    Plateau Province
2005    Fodor's Utah Guide
2007    Utah: The Light Fantastic (Mikenna Clokey)
2008    Zion National Park Impressions
Success with Landscape Photography
2009    Canyonlands National Park
New Jersey Impressions
2010 Canyons of Utah  (Mikenna Clokey)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read before hiking the New Mexico CDT!, November 10, 2001

By 

Roger Carpenter (Vancouver, WA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Along New Mexico's Continental Divide Trail (Paperback)

I just finished reading the book "Along New Mexico's Continental Divide Trail", with text written by David Patterson. Through the well-composed description and excellent, colorful photographs, the reader can get an idea what the land along the CDT is like, and what it's like to hike it. Initially, I was captivated because I have never hiked in New Mexico. In fact, I haven't even been to the state since 1974! I just wanted to get a glimpse of the region and the trail. As it turns out, the book was so enjoyable that I have decided to hike a portion of the New Mexico CDT this spring!

Although not a detailed guidebook, David's description of his hike, the people he met and the never-ending challenges of hiking in such unforgiving terrain were more than enough to help me understand the New Mexico CDT. Having thru-hiked the PCT, I know what hiking in a desert state is like. With its unique culture, topography and ambiguous CDT route, themes that David deals in, hiking in New Mexico is a whole new ball game! I could not have imagined hiking it without first reading the book. Early on David writes, "Except for the rusty barbed wire fence that marks the border between Mexico and the United States, this land knows no boundaries, natural or artificial, as far as I can see." Hiking in an environment that not long ago was home to indigenous cultures, he adds, "It's amazing how the tools, clothing and weapons of these previous cultures are merely modifications of the natural environment: rock, wood, and bone." Well said!

Each region of David's route is written in much the same way I mentally categorize and remember my 1996 PCT hike. For example, the Gila National Forest is described as a place where mining camps little the landscape, high desert plants such as prickly pear thrive, but there's some shade provided by the pines and junipers. "Bushwacking isn't necessarily my favorite pastime, but it's what we have to do to get beyond Diamond Peak." This section of David's route through the Gila had a big fire some years ago and it presents this challenge: "It's almost as if a bulldozer piled all the trees on top of each other, but then again Mother Nature's power is awesome. When the wind howls the few standing dead snags sway, and I can hear their eerie voices shrieking from the flames that licked them not long ago." Classic!

In the end he pays homage to this wonderful area of the CDT. "Weathered ranchers, forest rangers, mountain men, and friendly strangers- it's natures own character, silently revealing herself to me in the canyons, deserts, and mountains of New Mexico, that has made my journey through the Land of Enchantment an everlasting experience." Additionally, the photographs by Tom Till and William Stone provide a great background to David Patterson's description of the New Mexico CDT.