Soul of Yosemite: Portraits of Light and Stone

Celebrate one of Americas most iconic natural wonders with this stunning and singular photographic feast. Legendary mountaineer and award-winning photographer Ed Cooper captures the soul of Yosemite National Park in an entirely new way, zeroing in on its breathtaking peaks, ranges, and rocks.

With beautiful full-color photographs throughout, this one-of-a-kind pictorial travelogue guides visitors to the parks great landforms. It is organized in the order that a visitor arriving for the first time in Yosemite Valley would see the natural wonders of the park, which draws 3.7 million visitors annually.

Set to be a treasured keepsake for anyone with a love of the mountains and a passion for this magnificent region, Soul of Yosemite is quite simply a distillation of the most glorious views this magnificent mountain range has to offer.

From the authors introduction

My first view of Yosemite Valley was short, taking perhaps two hours. I arrived in the valley in one of the many clunker cars I owned then, during a spring break from college. The time was March, it was raining lightly, and only the lower parts of the great rock formations were visible. I had heard of climber Warren Hardings attempt to ascend the Nose of El Capitan, but he was not on the rock as far as I could see. . . . The year was 1958. . . .

Harding finished his climb of the Nose, along with Wayne Merry and George Whitmore, in November 1958. It was not until four years later that I returned to Yosemite Valley, first to climb, then to enter into a romance with recording images of one of the most fantastic places on this planet.

—Fred Beckey, mountaineering author and unofficial world-record holder for first ascents “Coopers mountain photos are so sharp you can almost feel the granite and the crunch of snow under your crampons.”—Karen Sykes, Seattle Post-Intelligencer "It wont be hard to immerse yourself in the beauty of the celebrated park with the stunning photographs found in Coopers collection."—Sierra magazine "This remarkable pictorial travelogue is the next best thing to actually being in the park.... In fact, all of the views in this collection are breathtaking and prove, once again, that Cooper is one of our most gifted contemporary photographers." —Tucson Citizen

This is a guide to the sights of Yosemite National Park, an exploration of rock in its many forms as found in the park. The third book in the Soul of the Heights series (Soul of the Heights – 50 Years Going to the Mountains [2007], and Soul of the Rockies – Portraits of Americas Largest Mountain Range [2008]), this beautiful full-color edition will appeal to the 3.7 million visitors each year to Yosemite National Park. The text provides interesting bits of the history of Yosemite, while the photographs document some of that same history.

Yosemite National Park in an entirely new way, zeroing in on its breathtaking peaks, ranges, and rocks, and the spectacular effects of changing light. Coopers one-of-a-kind pictorial travelogue guides you through the parks great landforms that he knows so intimately. Revealing the full majesty of vistas many others cannot reach, Soul of Yosemite is a distillation of the most glorious views this magnificent national park has to offer.

Ed Cooper became the first “climbing bum” in the Pacific Northwest during the Golden Age of North American climbing (1950s and 1960s). He is the author of the acclaimed Soul of the Heights: 50 Years Going to the Mountains and Soul of the Rockies: Portraits of America's Largest Mountain Range (both FalconGuides), and his photos have graced the covers of Audubon, Arizona Highways, Backpacker, National Geographic, and Sierra.