I have had some time to travel through the mountain climbing skills of Don Mellor, and the camera lens of Olaf Soot and view the grandeur of 10,000 miles of mountain peaks that run from the Arctic to the Patagonia. As I traveled (from my comfortable couch in the living room) the visual experience was breathtaking. When I wondered what I was looking at, the text with the pictures helped me understand the geology, or the history of the area, and sometimes even a philosophical perspective of what I was viewing.

I have never been a mountain climber, but I understand the majesty of mountains from travels in Colorado, my husband’s home, and Arizona, on extended business trips with my husband. Mountainous regions have great extremes, you can be in a warm green woodland one moment, then in cold and snow the next, then in a stark area devoid of trees because you are above timberline, and trees cannot grow…the ground is more like an arctic tundra, and that is just in the Midwest. I can only imagine…no…I can actually experience through this book what it is like to go look at the cold arctic regions, and then at a hot, smoky volcano in Mexico.

Coming back to earth now, after letting my imagination run a bit, let me tell you that this book is beautiful…it is a large table-top type book, so the photographs are grand. The book is broken down into Chapters that look at a specific mountain grouping each.

So go on an armchair Mountain adventure, or maybe you have dreams of climbing one day yourself, this book will inspire you.

Title: Alpine Americas; An Odyssey Along the Crest of Two Continents
Photographer: Olaf Soot
Essays/Text: Don Mellor
Publisher: Horizon Editions, LLC
Copyright: 2008
Description: 12″ x 13.3″ Hardcover with Illustrated Dust Jacket
Page Count: 256
Visit: http://www.horizoneditions.net