Breathtaking new photography and ideas explore the Range of Light An extraordinary mountain range, the Sierra Nevada rises high over California. In Luminous Mountains, award-winning author and photographer Tim Palmer captures the dazzling variety and enchantment of this revered and exquisite place, revealing the essence of the Sierra in a way that has never been done before, from its northern limit to its southernmost slope, from its rolling foothills in the west to its dramatic fault line at desert s edge. With 135 stunning photographs and engaging text, Palmer guides us through the stormy white depths of winter and into ancient green forests suffused with life. With knowledge gleaned from decades of experience, he writes of the intricate workings of nature and also the conflicts inherent in the booming growth of the nation s most populous state. In all months of the year he shows us unmatched images of wonder from icons of scenery such as Yosemite s El Capitan, Devils Postpile, Lake Tahoe, and Mount Whitney, to remote and secret enclaves amid the peaks and the canyons. Born of an intimate relationship with nature, Luminous Mountains is a spirited journey of discovery up the peaks and down the rivers of the great Sierra Nevada.

Customer Rating:
Summary: The Sierra Nevada captured in mind and heart
Comment: This book is the product of two passions: Tim Palmer the hiker and environmentalist palpably loves the Sierras while Tim Palmer the artist is drawn to the effects of light on this sacred place. The text makes clear a lifelong curiosity about and education in the many intersecting elements of these mountains. The pictures make clear a sympathy of eye and heart.

Award winning author and photographer, Tim has for nearly forty years been hiking in and caring for the Sierra Nevada range, during which time he has bounded this "twenty-million acre expanse," North, South, East and West in seasonal pictures to create a magnificent photographic rendering of one of our most spectacular terrains. This remarkable book leads us into the Sierras as he felt them first-hand in 1968: "I had the distinct feeling of going not so much higher but rather deeper into the folds of warping rock, deeper into the forests of lodgepole pine, deeper into the glacial enclaves once buried in ice but now drowned in pure luminous light so rich it seemed drinkable in yellow and gold."

We are taken deep into the Sierras in pictures that praise the intimate as well as the magisterial. Tim's eye, balanced and wide-ranging, finds delight in the lone marmot, the brilliant California poppy, the architectural columns at the Devil's Postpile, the lunar landscape of Mount Gayle, the immanent power of the Tuolomne River at Glen Aulin Falls, and the breathtaking, distant sweep of Mount Humphreys and the Eastern Sierra.

Anybody who has ever been moved by a mountain, lake, stream, tree or flower needs to get hold of this book.

---

Customer Rating:
Summary: The beauty of the Sierra Nevada mountains
Comment: The beauty of the Sierra Nevada mountains - something that doesn't get old to just stare at, even in photographic form. "Luminous Mountains: The Sierra Nevada of California" is a compilation of well over one hundred and thirty five photographs of the beautiful mountain range in various states of day, displaying a different type of beauty through each time of a day. An ideal coffee table book for lovers of beautiful scenery, "Luminous Mountains: The Sierra Nevada of California" is ideal for any community library collection focusing on nature photography.

---