Over the past 150 years, people have flocked to the Pacific Northwest in increasing numbers, in part due to the region’s beauty and one of its most exceptional features: volcanoes. This segment of the Pacific Ring of Fire has shaped not only the physical landscape of the region but also the psychological landscape, and with it the narratives we compose about ourselves. Exceptional Mountains is a cultural history of the Northwest volcanoes and the environmental impact of outdoor recreation in this region. It probes the relationship between these volcanoes and regional identity, particularly in the era of mass mountaineering and population growth in the Northwest. O. Alan Weltzien demonstrates how mountaineering is but one conspicuous example of the outdoor recreation industry’s unrestricted and problematic growth. He explores the implications of our assumptions that there are no limits to our outdoor recreation habits and that access to the highest mountains should include amenities for affluent consumers. Each chapter probes the mountain-based regional ethos and the concomitant sense of privilege and entitlement from different vantages to illuminate the consumerist mind-set as a reductive—and deeply problematic—version of experience and identity in and around some of the nation’s most striking mountains.

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. The Legacy of Exceptionalism -- 2. Standard Routes, Standard Highways -- 3. Cities and Their Volcanoes -- 4. Green Consumerism and the Volcanoes -- 5. Wilderness and Volcanoes -- 6. Volcanoes and Crowds -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

* 60 loop hikes throughout New Hampshire and Maine, from easy half-day trails to extended journeys, many with options to shorten or lengthen the hike * Hikes accessible from the most common vacation destinations, including Bar Harbor and Freeport in Maine, and Conway, Lincoln, and the Lakes Region in New Hampshire * Guidebook includes "Trail Finder" chart of hikes by features, difficulty, and more Best Loop Hikes New Hampshire's White Mountains to the Maine Coast is hiking with a welcome twist: no tandem driving, no dropping off a car at the end of the trail --and no turning around to hike the same trail back. Jeff Romano hiked more than 450 miles to select the best loop trails in northern New England -- from the rolling hills of southern New Hampshire and towering summits of the White Mountains to the large lakes and abundant wildlife of the Northern Forest and rocky coastline of Maine. Useful features of this guidebook include elevation profiles and charts listing hikes by special interest and best times to go. Information is also included on wildlife, geology, and history. Regions covered include Acadia National Park, Camden Hills, Baxter State Park, the Maine Coast, Moosehead Lake, the Presidential Range, Mount Washington Valley, Franconia Notch, the Lakes Region, and the Monadnock/Sunapee area.

In response to the growing scale and complexity of environmental threats, this volume collects articles, essays, personal narratives, and poems by more than forty authors in conversation about “thinking continental”—connecting local and personal landscapes to universal systems and processes—to articulate the concept of a global or planetary citizenship. Reckoning with the larger matrix of biome, region, continent, hemisphere, ocean, and planet has become necessary as environmental challenges require the insights not only of scientists but also of poets, humanists, and social scientists. Thinking Continental braids together abstract approaches with strands of more-personal narrative and poetry, showing how our imaginations can encompass the planetary while also being true to our own concrete life experiences in the here and now.

Ecology and Wonder celebrates Western Canada's breathtaking landscape. The book makes several remarkable claims. The greatest cultural achievement in the mountain region of western Canada may be what has been preserved, not what has been developed. Protecting the spine of the Rocky Mountains will preserve crucial ecological functions. Because the process of ecosystem diminshment and species loss has been slowed, an ecological thermostat has been kept alive. This may well be an important defence against future impacts of climate change in the Canadian West.

Part natural history, part poetry, Mountains of the Heart is full of hidden gems and less traveled parts of the Appalachian Mountains Stretching almost unbroken from Alabama to Belle Isle, Newfoundland, the Appalachians are one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. In Mountains of the Heart, renowned author and avid naturalist Scott Weidensaul shows how geology, ecology, climate, evolution, and 500 million years of history have shaped one of the continent's greatest landscapes into an ecosystem of unmatched beauty. This edition celebrates the book's 20th anniversary of publication and includes a new foreword from the author.