CLOSE UPS OF THE HIGH SIERRA
Norman Clyde

The paved roads were few to nonexistent. Hiking boots were leather-soled work boots hammered with nails for better traction on rock and snow. Rubber-soled basketball shoes doubled as climbing shoes. By today's standards, the equipment was primitive and access difficult, but these challenges posed no obstacle to California greatest mountaineer, Norman Clyde.

Clyde made more than 1,000 first ascents in the Sierra Nevada alone, far surpassing those of his predecessors, John Muir, Clarence King and William Brewer, combined.

Close Ups of the High Sierra is a journey into the beautiful and remote backcountry of the Sierra Nevada as told by Norman Clyde. With a degree in Classic Literature, Clyde taught high school in San Francisco before personal tragedy drove him to the eastern Sierra Nevada where he spent the rest of his life climbing.

Published here for the first time is a selection of Clyde's own writings about his experiences in the Sierra, which for most of the 20th century have been filed away in the forgotten solitude and darkness of private collections. Previously unpublished photographs taken by Clyde on his famed Sierra high trips attended by such notable Sierrans as Ansel Adams, Francis Farquhar, Cedric Wright, Glen Dawson and Jules Eichorn, remind us of a gentler time when dinner was cooked on a skillet over a wood fire - not in an aluminum bag on a propane stove.

"No man ever knew more of the High Sierra terrain than Norman Clyde."
David R. Brower

"Not since the time of John Muir had anyone established such a kinship with the Sierra Nevada."
Los Angeles Times

"Wherever men gather around blazing campfires on cold nights in the high country and talk of the history of mountaineering, there are certain names that inevitably come into the conversation . . .among Americans, John Muir, Clarence King and Norman Clyde."
San Francisco Chronicle

ISBN 0-9647530-3-0 $14.95 176 pages
Photography by Norman Clyde, Cedric Wright,Glen Dawson and Francis Farquhar

Born Free and Equal
Ansel Adams

Climbing Mt. Whitney
Peter Croft, Glen Dawson

Close Ups of the High Sierra
Norman Clyde

Death Valley to Yosemite: Frontier Mining Camps and Ghost Towns
L. Burr Belden & Mary DeDecker

Desert Summits
Andy Zdon

Favorite Dog Hikes In and Around Las Vegas
Wynne Benti & Megan Lawlor

Favorite Dog Hikes In and Around Los Angeles
Wynne Benti

Grand Canyon Treks
Harvey Butchart

High and Wild: Essays and Photographs on Wilderness Adventure
Galen Rowell

Mojave Desert Trails
Florine Lawlor

Out From Las Vegas
Florine Lawlor

The Secret Sierra: The Alpine World Above the Trees
David Gilligan

Robert Clunie: Plein Air Painter
of the Sierra
Richard Coons