Patagonia: Notes from the Field - Tapa dura

Reviews from: Outside Shape A project that derives from a marketing ploy those tantalizing, expedition photos and essays that strenuously don't pitch product in Patagonia's Inc.'s catalogs turns out to make a joyful, spectacularly good book. The 49 short essays are intense, first-person testaments by trekkers, water rats, and other outback sorts who have been to the edge and over, and then scrabbled back. Some are professionals at the word game Gretel Ehrlich, Doug Peacock but many of the best are not. Much of the joy, sure enough, is of the feels-good-when-it-stops variety. Read Bob McDougall on "Drowning," or nearly, while kayaking the Stikine. For giddy contrast, read Women Outside's own Jean Weiss on telemarking to a Jackson Hole Christmas party from a snowbound cabin with a foxy black cocktail dress flying like a banner from her pack. These are the sleeping bag yarns of the best sort. From the company that makes great adventure clothing comes a beautiful and inspiring collection of images and essays, many of which first appeared in their catalog. Patagonia: Notes from the Field touches nearly every wild spot on the globe, from icy reaches to steaming jungles, fast rivers to calm inlets of reflection. Written by kayakers and climbers, fishers and environmental fighters, the adventures are funny, poignant, insightful and terrifying. Getting dark fast...as usual we will have to climb in the dark...can't even see to make a correct knot...I clear the pitch, in absolute darkness, by feel and by light of the occasional spark from the hammer hitting pitons. Have to leave in two pins...more than anything I'm frightened by this having to climb in the dark...Yvon Chouinard, "The 17th Pitch of the North American Wall, October 1964"

The people who use Patagonia gear have explored the furthest extremities of wildnessfrom the icy waters of the Labrador Sea to the baking hot, vertical granite of El Capitan. Patagonia: Notes from the Field delivers an intense glimpse of those front lines in a spectacular collection of essays and photographs commissioned for Patagonia. Authors such as Paul Theroux, Gretel Ehrlich, Russell Chatham, Rick Ridgeway, and Tom McGuane offer first-hand perspectivesoften off-beat and sometimes unsettlingon our relationship to the natural world. Their words capture life-threatening moments and sudden insights into the soul of a sport. The accompanying images may command silence (the tiny silhouettes of climbers on a distant snowy ridge) or elicit a whoop of joy (a kayaker dropping off a 20-foot waterfall). Editor Nora Gallagher has collected the best essays and images from Patagonia's award-winning catalog and melded them with newly commissioned material to create an intelligent, powerful, and vital portrait of "life out there." Patagonia: Notes from the Field will appeal to adventurers, travelers, and dreamers everywhere.