Adirondacks Alive

The photography of Olaf Svvt and writings of Don Mellor create an unusual book and insightful look at the Adirondack Mountains of New York State. The book consists of seven chapters, each describing pictorially and in words a single natural process in Adirondack wilderness: Discovery, Living Landscape, Pathways, The Great Cleft, High Winter, Fire and Rebirth and Mists in Time. Adirondacks Alive illustrates as it teaches. It is an adventure, not just a gallery. The book takes us right into the scenes to feel the cold winter wind on the exposed summits, and to touch the bare rock stripped of its forest in the catastrophic landslides. The photographs and essays make real to our senses the smells of a forest rebuilding and the sound of water as it trickles from a high mountain pond and grows into the mighty Hudson River. Along the way, Adirondacks Alive tells of history and geology and the marvelous interplay between the natural world and its human residents.