In the Years of the Mountains: Exploring the World’s High Ranges in Search of Their Culture, Geology, and Ecology

For the past ten years David Gilligan has climbed all of the major mountain ranges in the world. His resulting narrative, In the Years of the Mountains, takes readers to the highest places on four continents for an up-close consideration of the cultural, geological, and biological make up of mountains. From the Swiss Alps to the Himalayas, on to New Zealand, and then back to the North American cordillera, Gilligan treats readers to adventure mixed with science and history. This book is an ode to the essence of high mountains, but it is also about wishing desperately for a good picket placement on a steep snowfield, with a yawning crevasse just feet below; about watching a pious man offer burnt juniper to the gods; and about being alone on a crystalline white summit during a temperature inversion, with purple-gray clouds spreading out like an atmospheric ocean in all directions as far as the eye can see. From a master mountaineer, explorer, and university professor, In the Years of the Mountains is an eye-opening look at mountains: a collision of the grand with the intensely personal.