An inspiring collection of evocative images collected by lifelong mountaineer Sandy Hill, who has a singular knowledge, understanding, and experience of the world’s highest places. Powerful, beautiful, wild, sublime, and forbidding, the world’s summits are often considered the last real frontier. Mountain is a luxuriously illustrated celebration of mountains and of the sense of wonder and awe that the sight of this geography can evoke. In this stunning collection of photographs and art, the very personal relationship that people have with mountains is conveyed in exceptional images from around the world. Spanning two centuries, this book contains rarely seen images from such legendary nature photographers as Galen Rowell, Peter Beard, Ansel Adams, and Frank Smythe and photographs taken by daring mountaineers who celebrate the beauty, wonder, and spectacle of the heights, making this a unique and spectacular tribute to the mountains of the world. A portion of the book’s proceeds go to the American Alpine Club Library. Text contributors include: Raul Barrenche, Jennifer Jordan, Erling Kagge, Ellen Lapham, Robert McFarlane, Nando Parrado, Phil Powers, and Jack Tackle.
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"With stunning images from Galen Rowell and Ansel Adams, among others, Sandy Hill’s Mountain: Portrait’s of High Places is that rare coffee-table book that gets your heart pounding." ~Outside Magazine
About the Author
Sandy Hill is an adventurer, mountaineer, and writer. In 1996, she reached the summit of Mount Everest, making her among the first people in the world to have reached all of the Seven Summits. Jennifer Jordan is an award-winning writer and filmmaker. Erling Kagge is an explorer/adventurer and lawyer, and was the first person to accomplish the “Three Poles Challenge”: reaching the North Pole, the South Pole, and the summit of Mount Everest. Robert Macfarlane is an award-winning travel writer and literary critic. Nando Parrado is one of the sixteen Uruguayan survivors of the airplane crash in the Andes Mountains on October 13, 1972. Jack Tackle is an avid mountain climber and guide. He has climbed the Teton Mountains more than 300 times. Text contributors include: Raul Barrenche, Jennifer Jordan, Erling Kagge, Robert McFarlane, Nando Parrado, Phil Powers, and Jack Tackle.
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16 of 21 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
It only looks like a coffee table book. Really, it's a spiritual experience.
October 11, 2011
Format:Hardcover
I was the kid who, in boarding school, couldn't climb the rope in the gym to the rafters, a requirement for graduation. Decades later, climbing the aptly name Breakneck Ridge, I found myself on a nearly vertical wall of stone and freaked out so completely that my wife had to maneuver below me and push me over the top.
Climbing, I've long believed, is more than a passion --- it's a drug. So I wasn't stunned to hear that Sandy Hill had reached the top of the world's "seven summits" and had climbed mountains in a hundred countries. Or that she was on the climb you read about in Jon Krakauer's 'Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster.' Part of the thrill of expeditions like this is the flirtation with death; roll the dice often enough and eventually you roll doom. Lucky me to take all my risks on a nice, safe computer keyboard.
But as I looked through Hill's book, "Mountain: Portraits of High Places," my responses were unsettling. I found myself stunned. Moved. Inspired. Weepy. Exalted. And, finally, enlightened, for as I looked around our apartment, I saw that I too had the obsession, though in the mildest possible form --- photography. On one wall, the famous 1948 Cartier-Bresson image of Muslim women praying on the slopes of Hari Parbat. On another, an Abbas Kiarostami photo of lush mountains in Afghanistan. And on my computer, a startling black-and-white image of a high-walled canyon.
The mountains --- maybe they're inside of us. Some of us confront them in books and images and dreams; some of us need to confront them as physical challenges. But all of us want, if not the thrill of the climb, the satisfaction of the view from the top --- the sense of being on top of the world, looking down as if from space.
And that is the appeal of "Mountain." Physically the book is a slab: 11" by 12", 350 black-and-white and color photographs, 6.4 pounds. And then, as you move through the photo spreads, it becomes a kind of spiritual quest. The photos are historical (Stieglitz), artistic (Ruscha) and monumental (Lynn Davis). And varied? Oh my.
There are mountains like uncut diamonds in the sky. Shards of ice pointing to the heavens. Everest haunted by a swirling cloud. An erupting volcano. A climber on George Washington's face on Mt. Rushmore. A man climbing, without equipment, on a high rock wall. A double spread of vast whiteness, with five dots in the center --- people crossing a snowfield, looking like Morse code. Observatories and spas at impossible heights. And, over and over, pictures so not of this world that only the inclusion of the moon establishes they're of our earth.
And there are essays, from Sandy Hill; a filmmaker; the first person to reach the North Pole, the South Pole, and the summit of Mount Everest; a literary critic; one of the sixteen survivors of an airplane crash in the Andes Mountains; and a guide who has climbed the Teton Mountains more than 300 times. These pieces are terse and smart, but they don't matter --- not when set against images of so much beauty and power.
There are big books that you buy for people you don't completely care about --- gift books, coffee table books. And then there are books like "Mountain," books that cost you something to look through, books that repay the effort. Yes, "Mountain" is a book for the holidays. But more, it's a prayer in stone and snow, a reach for the divine. To look through it even casually is be cleansed and humbled.
Climbing, I've long believed, is more than a passion --- it's a drug. So I wasn't stunned to hear that Sandy Hill had reached the top of the world's "seven summits" and had climbed mountains in a hundred countries. Or that she was on the climb you read about in Jon Krakauer's 'Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster.' Part of the thrill of expeditions like this is the flirtation with death; roll the dice often enough and eventually you roll doom. Lucky me to take all my risks on a nice, safe computer keyboard.
But as I looked through Hill's book, "Mountain: Portraits of High Places," my responses were unsettling. I found myself stunned. Moved. Inspired. Weepy. Exalted. And, finally, enlightened, for as I looked around our apartment, I saw that I too had the obsession, though in the mildest possible form --- photography. On one wall, the famous 1948 Cartier-Bresson image of Muslim women praying on the slopes of Hari Parbat. On another, an Abbas Kiarostami photo of lush mountains in Afghanistan. And on my computer, a startling black-and-white image of a high-walled canyon.
The mountains --- maybe they're inside of us. Some of us confront them in books and images and dreams; some of us need to confront them as physical challenges. But all of us want, if not the thrill of the climb, the satisfaction of the view from the top --- the sense of being on top of the world, looking down as if from space.
And that is the appeal of "Mountain." Physically the book is a slab: 11" by 12", 350 black-and-white and color photographs, 6.4 pounds. And then, as you move through the photo spreads, it becomes a kind of spiritual quest. The photos are historical (Stieglitz), artistic (Ruscha) and monumental (Lynn Davis). And varied? Oh my.
There are mountains like uncut diamonds in the sky. Shards of ice pointing to the heavens. Everest haunted by a swirling cloud. An erupting volcano. A climber on George Washington's face on Mt. Rushmore. A man climbing, without equipment, on a high rock wall. A double spread of vast whiteness, with five dots in the center --- people crossing a snowfield, looking like Morse code. Observatories and spas at impossible heights. And, over and over, pictures so not of this world that only the inclusion of the moon establishes they're of our earth.
And there are essays, from Sandy Hill; a filmmaker; the first person to reach the North Pole, the South Pole, and the summit of Mount Everest; a literary critic; one of the sixteen survivors of an airplane crash in the Andes Mountains; and a guide who has climbed the Teton Mountains more than 300 times. These pieces are terse and smart, but they don't matter --- not when set against images of so much beauty and power.
There are big books that you buy for people you don't completely care about --- gift books, coffee table books. And then there are books like "Mountain," books that cost you something to look through, books that repay the effort. Yes, "Mountain" is a book for the holidays. But more, it's a prayer in stone and snow, a reach for the divine. To look through it even casually is be cleansed and humbled.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Some of us seem to have been born obsessed with mountains. Long before I can remember, I wanted to climb. As a young graduate student many decades ago I sailed from America to Europe, stepped off the boat, dropped my bags at Oxford, and immediately headed to Zermatt to climb my beloved Matterhorn which had been my dream ever since I was a very young kid just as some kids want to ride fire engines. From my earliest misty days my life has been a love affair with high mountains. During this journey I have collected books on mountains and mountaineering. The list is long. I am now 76 and their numbers crush me. But they are my children and I cannot deal with the emotion of giving any of them away. Rather than "downsizing" as I should be doing, in my path now appears this ultimate mountain photographic book of my lifetime. T.S. Eliot said "Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them; there is no third." In terms of mountain photographic books, in my humble opinion there not only is no "third" but there is no "second" either. With bared head and bended knee I declare that for me there is only "Mountain" by Sandy Hill, published by Rizzoli. With great gratitude to them, "Mountain" now occupies pride of place in my collection.
Kenneth E. MacWilliams
Portland, Maine
Kenneth E. MacWilliams
Portland, Maine
By EV
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
A diverse and breathtaking views of mountain ranges throughout the world. Mostly photos but some good editorial as wel. This is a book to sit down and peruse by the fire dreaming of all the beautiful mountains you would like to see in person.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Coffee table book
I will admit to not owning this book, and probably doesn't cross my threshold to buy this book. I thumbed through this book while awaiting a friend shopping at Marmot Mountain... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Eugene N. Miya
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mountain is a great value
The quality of the book is quite adequate. Author obviously loves mountains and provides annotation for the pictures that is complete and helpful. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Old Goat
5.0 out of 5 stars
Warm loving tribute to mountains - surprisingly personal
After more than an hour the morning after it arrived, I was still slowly, slowly turning pages, and realized it was a much different book than I imagined. Read more
Published 17 months ago by LaurieF
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