Announcing the Spring 2003 publication of:

Yosemite Once Removed -
Portraits of the Backcountry

Photographs by Claude Fiddler, with essays by Steve Roper, Nancy Fiddler, John Hart, Anne Macquarie, and Doug Robinson

The Yosemite Association is pleased to announce the Spring 2003 publication of Yosemite Once Removed - Portraits of the Backcountry, a stunning series of photographs paired with essays that focus on the territory beyond the roads and beaten paths of Yosemite. Most books about the park place a spotlight on Yosemite Valley with its granite cliffs and waterfalls, and icons such as El Capitan, Half Dome, and Bridalveil Fall. But the site of these famous landmarks is only seven square miles in size - and makes up just a tiny fraction of the park's area.

This work is about the greater Yosemite National Park, with a wilderness area that comprises more than 94% of its nearly 1,200 square miles. It is an undefiled, primordial landscape that remains the same generation after generation.

Claude Fiddler's remarkable photographs and the engaging essays by five veteran backcountry travelers will take readers to this marvelous region, far above much-visited Yosemite Valley. That extraordinary valley, visited by queens and presidents, has enjoyed its share of the spotlight. Yosemite Once Removed illuminates the Yosemite that queens and presidents never see.

Essay topics include a history of the Yosemite wilderness, a walk with a backcountry ranger, locating the most remote spot in the park, winter skiing over the Sierra crest, and exploring Tenaya Canyon. Claude Fiddler contributes nearly 50 large-format color photographs from all corners of Yosemite that took him some 20 years to complete.

Claude Fiddler is a climber and photographer who has made over fifty first ascents throughout the Sierra. Previous books of his images, The High Sierra: Wilderness of Light and A Vast and Ancient Wilderness: Images of the Great Basin, both published by Chronicle Books, established him as one of the foremost landscape photographers in America today. He lives with his wife and daughter on the east side of the Sierra in Crowley Lake, California.

Steve Roper, also an accomplished climber and mountaineer, is the author of several books, including Camp 4: Recollections of a Yosemite Rockclimber and Climber's Guide to Yosemite Valley. He co-edits Ascent, the well-known mountaineering journal, and has collaborated with Claude Fiddler on several projects. Roper resides in Oakland, California.

Nancy Fiddler spent several seasons working near Yosemite's Tioga Pass, and during that period she explored the Yosemite high country extensively. Now a resident of the Mammoth Lakes region, she continues to spend a great deal of time traveling in the Yosemite backcountry with her husband Claude and daughter Laurel.

Anne Macquarie knows Yosemite intimately, having spent her childhood living in Yosemite Valley. She worked summers as a backcountry ranger in the park, and later joined her husband as a winter wilderness ranger in Tuolumne Meadows for many seasons. She now lives in Carson City, Nevada.

John Hart is a writer and consultant on planning and environmental issues living in the San Francisco Bay area. His previous books include Storm Over Mono: The Mono Lake Battle and the California Water Future and Hiking the Great Basin. His Walking Softly in the Wilderness won a National Outdoor Book Award in 1999.

Doug Robinson, a veteran Yosemite climber and winter mountaineer, is the author of A Night on the Ground, a Day in the Open. That book is a collection of the best of his writings from magazines like Outside, Climbing, and Powder about his many backcountry adventures. He lives in Aptos, California.

YOSEMITE ONCE REMOVED - PORTRAITS OF THE BACKCOUNTRY

Publication Date: May, 2003
128 pages, illustrated in full color, 11¼" x 9½", clothbound with dust jacket, $29.95
ISBN: 1-930238-05-3
Yosemite Association: (209) 379-2648.