In one climbing year Peter Boardman visited three very different sacred mountains. He began in the New Year, on the South Face of the Carstensz Pyramid in New Guinea. This shark's fin of steep limestone walls and sweeping glaciers is the highest point between the Andes and the Himalaya, and one of the most inaccessible, rising above thick jungle inhabited by warring Stone Age tribes. During the spring Boardman was on more familiar, if hardly more reassuring, ground, making a four-man, oxygen-free attempt on the world's third highest peak, Kangchenjunga. Hurricane-force winds beat back their first two bids on the unclimbed North Ridge, but they eventually stood within feet of the summit - leaving the final few yards untrodden in deference to the inhabiting deity. In October, he was back in the Himalaya and climbing the mountain most sacred to the Sherpas: the twin-summited Gauri Sankar. Renowned for its technical difficulty and spectacular profile, it is aptly dubbed the Eiger of the Himalaya and Boardman's first ascent of the South Summit took a committing and gruelling twenty-three days. Three sacred mountains, three very different expeditions, all superbly captured by Boardman in Sacred Summits, his second book, first published shortly after his death in 1982. Combining the excitement of extreme climbing with acute observation of life in the mountains, this is an amusing, dramatic, poignant and thought-provoking book, amply fulfilling the promise of Boardman's first title, The Shining Mountain, for which he won the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize in 1979. Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker died on Everest in 1982, whilst attempting a new and unclimbed line. Both men were superb mountaineers and talented writers. Their literary legacy lives on through the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature, established by family and friends in 1983 and presented annually to the author or co-authors of an original work which has made an outstanding contribution to mountain literature. For more information about the Boardman Tasker Prize, visit: www.boardmantasker.com

    The route follows a general direction but no particular trail, thus causing little or no impact and allowing hikers to experience the beautiful sub-alpine region of the High Sierra in a unique way.With access points noted along the way, the route can be broken into week-long segments, and hikers can choose segments for their skill level. Each of the five route chapters includes an overview highlighting geographical and historical points of interest, maps, difficulty ratings, approach instructions, safety considerations, directions, alternate routes, and accessible non-technical climbs.

    

    It was a smoke-choked, triple-digit August Sunday, a day I will never forget. Smoke from the McNally fire in Sequoia National Park had drifted across the Sierra Nevada for weeks, collecting like a fog bank in the pocket of the Owens Valley. My husband and I were in the Buttermilks most of the day, arriving home at 4:30 in the afternoon to the answering machine's red blinking light. The message, left before noon, brought disbelief, then sadness. Just after 1:00 A.M. two men were fishing for catfish in Buckley Ponds south of Bishop Airport. They watched a small plane pass by, eye-level, wings perpendicular to the ground, then vanish into the darkness behind a low ridge. At 1:00 P.M. the next day, our FedEx driver handed me a box from Hong Kong—the final color proofs for this edition of High & Wild. Before he and Barbara left for the Bering Sea, Galen said, that if they had to go to China to tend to another project, they would be back by August 15th. If not, they would be back Sunday. We would look over the proofs, but that was not to be. Galen and Barbara Rowell moved to Bishop in the late spring of 2001. They bought the old Monument Bank building and opened Mountain Light Gallery. From the day it opened it was the shining star of this rural ranching town's main street. It was Galen who suggested that we publish a new edition of his book High & Wild: Essays and Photographs in Wilderness Adventure. He selected photographs, added new chapters, and wrote new material, all of which are as he left them. His photographs were composed with such perfection that an entire image could be used edge to edge without cropping. On my way to and from Bishop, I sometimes saw him photographing the dramatic light of the Sierra or White Mountains through the cottonwoods and poplars, alone and completely absorbed in his work. Galen loved the Eastern Sierra and that is why High & Wild with its many climbing and skiing stories, set here in this beautiful country, held such a special place in his heart. He stopped by now and then to chat. Once he came by after dayhiking to the summit of White Mountain Peak. On the way down, he wanted to bypass heavy snow then discovered he was in another canyon. To get back to his car, 10,000 became 13,000 feet of gain. Often he climbed Mt. Whitney's east face in the morning and was back at his desk by noon. More than once he said he was getting too old for such things. He carried the galleys for High & Wild with him to Tibet and back saying it would give him something to read on the long flight. Having outlived his Mt. McKinley ski expedition partners, Ned Gillette, Alan Bard, and Doug Weins, I asked him what it felt like to be the one still here, so he wrote about it. While working on High & Wild, he lost his friend Warren Harding. Always reminders. Galen valued life, knew its precious quality, and filled every moment with living. On August 23rd, he would have celebrated his 62nd birthday. Galen and Barbara Rowell came to Bishop like two shooting stars. Burning bright and spectacular, they brought dreams to this town. No matter to what remote corners of the world they traveled, from Siberia to Tibet, they always came back to the Eastern Sierra. This is where they wanted to be. This was home. Wynne Benti, Publisher Bishop, California, August 2002

    Detailed narratives profile fifty challenging climbs in premier mountaineering areas, describing the physical features and surroundings of the Alaskan ranges, the Rockies, the Bugaboos, the Washington Cascade, and the Sierra Nevada.