Coffee table books takes readers on a photographic summer trip

By SCOTT McMILLION, Chronicle Staff Writer

Travel season hurtles upon us like a runaway Winnebago. If you don't already have the bug to go somewhere, a quartet of new new books, all by people with ties to the region, will make you want to load the car with boots and backpacks and hit the highway.

You don't even have to go far. The literary and photographic offerings display the majesties of Yellowstone National Park, examine its link to a larger world, and even teach you how to find undiscovered trout waters around Montana.

The most lavish of the season's new coffee table books by regional artists is "Our National Parks," photographed by David Muench and written by his wife, former Bozeman resident Ruth Rudner.

The book is stunning, taking you from Alaska's northern regions to the swamps of Florida to the volcanoes of Hawaii. It focuses on landscapes and the nation's "natural" parks, as opposed to its historic ones, like civil war battlefields.

Even if you don't time for travel this summer, the volume by Graphic Arts Press is worth the $50 price tag. Muench's photos and Rudner's prose will take you all over the continent and show you nature's most awe-inspiring creations.

"Yellowstone to Yukon, Freedom to Roam" is a new photo book by Florian Shulz, a German lensman who's been wandering the spine of the northern Rockies for years, capturing images of country so wild and so remote that few people even dream of visiting it.

Yellowstone to Yukon, often called Y2Y, is a project being pushed by several American and Canadian environmental groups. Though the idea draws criticism from extractive industries, it's really quite simple: leave the country pretty much the way it is, maybe do some rehabilitation projects.

And what a stretch of country it is. Mountains, rivers, canyons and tundra. Deserts and prairies and forests. The system is all connected, mostly through its wandering wildlife, and Y2Y calls for keeping it intact. The $34.95 volume, published by The Mountaineer Books with help from environmental groups, explains the concepts with essays by noted naturalists and writers including Canadian David Suzuki, Bozeman's David Quammen, Wyoming's Ted Kerasote, and Montana's Rick Bass, plus Karsten Heuer, who walked the entire distance several years ago.

The photography, though it doesn't shy from clearcuts and coal mines, focuses mostly on wild landscapes and wild animals. Shulz aims his camera at what's still out there, the wild nature that still works.

For an even closer focus on a local region, check out "Portrait of Yellowstone: Land of Geysers and Grizzlies," by photographer David William Peterson.

Even people long familiar with the park will find pleasant surprises in this volume by Helena's Farcountry Press. Williams spends a lot of time in the park's backcountry, particularly the lesser known geyser basins, and has brought home images that Yellowstone's hordes of pavement-bound tourists will never see.

The $24.95 book would make a good gift for any distant friends or relatives you're trying to lure to Montana for a visit.

Also on the good-gift-idea list is "Fly Fishing the Solitude: Montana," written and photographed by Trapper Badovinac, a veteran Helena-area fishing guide.

Badovinac knows how to catch trout in places the crowds don't go, the small streams and unlikely waters that most people drive right by on their way to famous rivers.

The $29.95 volume, by Helena's Riverbend Publishing, is packed with advice on fish, on fishing, and on the best gear to bring with you or leave in a drawer somewhere.

But knowledge, Bodovinac maintains, is the best thing to own when you're looking for uncrowded water and planning to lift some fish from it, even if only for a moment.

"Knowledge is key," he writes. "It won't add weight to your vest and once you have it, you don't have to worry about leaving it behind in the hotel room."

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