Great book. Who says we have to travel to far away places for adventure? Tim Palmer had what for most of us would be a lifetime of adventures on this 9 month journey. At the same time the people he introduces us to and the observations he shares about all that he sees will make any reader think harder about our place on and responsibilities to this world.

Pacific High is a wonderful blend of adventure, travel, natural history, personal reflection, and investigation of environmental issues that the author discovers as he makes his way from Baja to Alaska on a 9 month journey. The book offers a great way to become acquainted with the familiar-though little known Coast Range mountains that Palmer points out are in view of the west coast's biggest cities. And it is refreshingly well-written! The book has certainly inspired me to get to know the coast mountains in my own part of the range better.

While Yosemite's splendor is introduced to the reader in the photographs, it is impossible to really capture the beauty of this great park with just a picture. The beauty of this book is a combined effort of excellence in photography and prose which sings the praises of this absolutely amazing corner of the world.

I highly recommend this book for those heading to Yosemite, want help in remembering a trip, or, for those of you not fortunate enough to have the chance to get there (go-go-go!), you'll read it and book the next flight!

A long time fan of William Neill's amazing photography, this book is a work of love. It is obvious in the beautiful images that his passion for Yosemite is revealed, page by page. Yosemite is one of the most visited and most photographed national parks in the US. Made famous by the images by Ansel Adams, among others, Half Dome and El Capitan have been photographed by millions every year for decades. Just when you think that every possible image and perspective has been taken, Mr. Neill's book opens your eyes up to more unique and varied possibilities.

To truly reveal the magic that is Yosemite, you must explore it during all the seasons, time and time and time again over the years. Mr. Neill clearly did as this book explores the beauty and uniqueness that is Yosemite through all those seasons, all the weather. With each page memories and enchantment flood the soul as I remember standing in the same spot, but seeing it anew through the magic of his camera, surrounded by the magic of the place. Even if you've never visited Yosemite, you will come away a friend with this book.

I highly recommend it to everyone who visits or considers visiting Yosemite. If you are thinking about a book that represents some of the magic that is nature and the wild in the United States to give to a friend from a foriegn land or someone city-bound, this book will feel like a hike through the woods and some magical place.

William Neill has done it again! Be sure and check out the rest of his wonderful books. I highly recommend "By Nature's Design" and "The Color of Nature" books. His images are timeless.

This book was required reading for an environmental policy course that I took in college in 1988. Re-reading it after having recently ended a mercifully brief stint with the Army Corps of Engineers, it confirms my own observations that agencies such as the Army Corps and the Bureau of Reclamation are above all dispensers of political pork. It powerfully chronicles the gross environmental and economic iniquities that have resulted from fiscally- and economically-unsupportable big government water development projects. It is an illuminating read no matter how much one thinks one knows about the subject.

Primarily, though, this is a book about the conservation movement and the intrinsically spiritual but unquantifiable value of wild rivers, the natural environment, and the natural distribution of water resources. To protect a wild river, the author says, is to prevent "the killing boredom, the stifling artificiality, the loneliness of life without wild creatures, the dread of a world so lopsidedly controlled by the institutions dedicated to making money." Such concerns in the past were usually outweighed by political concerns and economic interests. There was even a time when our greatest natural treasure, the Grand Canyon, was under consideration as a dam site! The author points to a recent slow-down in the construction of new water development projects as a sign that convervationists' concerns are at least starting to be addressed but says a river is something which must be saved and resaved.

One passage early in the book that stuck with me as I was reading the rest of the book is "Underlying many aspects of water-development is a myth: the myth that we must always have more. Meeting needs is one thing, but recklessly subsidizing waste is another." No one would disagree that subsidizing waste is bad but this book sheds light on how wasteful "water development" has degraded our wild rivers and natural heritage and how much the forces of big government are responsible for it. I recommend this book to all concerned citizens.

after reading this, after the anticipation of burton's feelings towards the mudane working world, you will realize that what burton has done on film only shows you half of the complexity of his genius.