Song of the Alpine: The Rocky Mountain Tundra Through the Seasons

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Summary: Song of the Alpine
Review: Joyce Gellhorn is a botanist, a science teacher, a gifted photographer and a passionate observer and explorer of the natural world. She has combined these talents with fine writing in her book, "Song of the Alpine". This book is a treasure for anyone who has wandered the fragile and exquisite land above the trees whether in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado (Gellhorn's home) or high peaks anywhere in the world. Ever wonder how the tiny alpine flowers survive in the rocky alpine terrains? How the ptarmagin manage not only to survive but actually to gain weight during the long, harsh winters? Why when spring comes to the Rockies, yellow and grey butterflies (Rocky Mountain parnassian) swarm the meadows of yellow flowers (stone crop)? "Song of the Alpine" illustrates and explains these fascinating adaptions and interactions and symbiotic relationships. Gellhorn's book includes over 140 photographs to accompany her text. The book is a guide and an inspiration to the reader. Gellhorn asks us to bear witness: to observe the dance of the tiniest insects, to study the amazing design of a snow crystal and to experience the grand symphony of the alpine weather in all seasons. This book teaches us that the more we can know of the natural world, the more we will experience the song and the joy that Gellhorn so eloquently evokes.

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Summary: A Stirring Portrayal of a Magical Place
Review: Song and of the Alpine presents fascinating details about plant and animal survival in North America's harshest and most scenic landscape: how ptarmigan burrow into the snow to survive frigid winter nights, how sky pilots use their skunky smell to attract pollinators, how the bright yellow petals of snow buttercups act as solar collectors. Lyrical prose depicting the flow of the seasons and struggle for survival weaves these ecological insights together. Lovely color photographs of wildflowers, butterflies, wildlife, and dramatic weather events accompany the text. I will read this book over and over, and I will carry it with me whenever I go camping in the high country.

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Summary: Gorgeous book, but not just a pretty face
Review: This is a gorgeous, fact filled book, but hard to classify. Joyce Gellhorn is an adventurous women - one of the women backpackers interviewed in Susan Alcorn's book, We're in the Mountains, Not Over the Hill: Tales and Tips From Seasoned Women Backpackers. Song of the Alpine tells how at the age of 15, Joyce Gellhorn and her sister decided to climb all of Colorado's 14,000 foot peaks, starting with Longs Peak. The author was hooked on the high tundra country, and made a career of it, getting a Ph.D. in botany, with a specialty in plant ecology. Her book is beautiful, glossy paged, lots of color photos, but by the end of it you realize that you have also picked up a huge amount of factual information - the physics of thunderstorms, the winter habits of pikas, wet snow and dry snow avalanches, early mountain climbers - worth the price just for the pika photos.