The Quiet Mountains: A Ten-Year Search for the Last Wild Trout of Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental (Hardcover)

~ Rex Johnson Jr. (Author), David Burckhalter (Photographer), Joseph C. Wilder (Series Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Johnson has composed a wonderful, at times lyrical, exploration of an out-of-the-way niche on our crowded planet." (California Literary Review )

Product Description

Readers who believe as Herman Melville’s Ishmael, that “meditation and water are wedded for ever,” will be entranced by Rex Johnson, Jr.’s, account of his travels to the upper Bavispe River in Mexico’s northern Sierra Madre. Combining travel observations, natural history, ethnography, ecology, and ichthyology, Johnson’s narrative plunges the reader into a world that is so far from the twenty-first-century United States that it is difficult to believe how physically close the two countries actually are.

Johnson goes in search of an ancient species of trout, the Bavispe, at least 3 million years old. It has been easier for the Bavispe to remain unchanged for millennia than for the human inhabitants of the Sierra Madre to endure for mere centuries. Johnson notes the area’s Indian descendants are in the process of becoming modern, and the needs of the ancient trout, dependent on pure, unpolluted water, collide at times with the choices of people scratching out an existence in a challenging environment.

The parallel stories from natural and human history are a central theme in Johnson’s account of environmental change and its consequences, layered with the personal, contemplative meaning he finds in the quest for the seldom-seen fish.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press; First Printing edition (August 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826322735
• ISBN-13: 978-0826322739
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,570,761 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars South of the Border Trout, July 24, 2005

By	Fishing Writing (SE) - See all my reviews

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I really enjoyed this book. While its topic is not exactly fishing, not exactly enviro, not exactly travel - Johnson mixes opinions, observations and facts on trout, politics, south west history, people, and a look at how one may live in a very elemental style. He writes well. I will read it again and the photos are fascinating. I hope Rex Johnson does more books as this, along with his guidebook on trout in southern new mexico, are very high quality........

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars magic in a magical land, October 21, 2005

By	Michael Berman - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

small streams ... and desire ... to find something wild beyond boundries and borders .. If you fish to catch fish ... you will find this book strange .. but if you fish to step out side ...

into a wild .. place

this book might suggest it is possible.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Refreshing Read, August 17, 2005

By	Peter Crum "Pinoncito" (Mimbres, NM United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a fascinating exploration of a relatively unknown region of two countries. A study in determination and patience, Johnson's writing sparkles like the clear rills, pools and falls that I thought were gone forever. A refuge for survivors, from the Apaches to the rancheros, parrots and "narcos" of today, this is another view of the region Cormac McKarthy calls "not for old men". Complimented with great photography.