Anyone who knows James Balog's work will be happy to read that his book about Trees is now available. I knew it was coming out after sharing emails with James but I was greatly surprized one evening last week.

I was invited out to a clients house to evaluate and setting on his table was a photo-collage of the Stagg Sequioa Tree.

"That is the largest tree I have ever climbed and I slept in a hammock at the top", I said.

Seems that he is a professor of Biology at the University of Missouri and the book was a gift from his daughter. That launched a long talk filled with latin names and favorite local trees.

Next June I am invited to go out to a local wildlife area with him and his class on their field trip. He has a grand scyamore (Platanus occidentalis), that he is sure that students will love to get high.

So the book is on my soon-to-be birthday anniversary gift list and happy to have a climb planned this summer.

The weather will be great and the people will be fun and it warms my cockles to think about it and that is needed since it is now 11F with bitter north winds gusting over 30 mph with wind chills around -5F.

YUCK

See you at the top,
treetramp

Link to the bookstore:
James Balog's "TREE"

Link to his website:
James Ballog's website

Thanks for the posting and the pics on James Balog's work. He lives near here in Boulder, and I've tried to contact him, but he hasn't returned the calls. I was hoping to introduce him to TCI and do some climbing.

If you're looking for other great coffee table-type tree books, check out the works of Thomas Pakenham, who has a series of "Remarkable Trees.." books. His commentaries are a little affected, but the pics and tree selections are remarkable.

Also, another Boulder couple, Louie and Vicki Psihoyos, the people who did the original Smithsonian piece of Peter and Patty treeclimbing along with a recent one in Life Magazine, have a website with some great tree climbing photography. It's at http://www.psihoyos.com/
click on "features" and then "tree climbing"

MAGNIFICENT!!

Please excuse me for shouting, but the pictures by Louie and Vicki Psihoyos are just spectacular!

Thanks, Ponderosa, for telling us about this site.

Now I know I have to go west one of these days.

Wow!

maybe we all ought to pool are favorite books at a central site.



PS tell patty that the abouve photo of James Balog's book is an image from Barnes and Noble that you can link to to add pixel excitement to your posts. Click on the icon of the landscape and have ready a copy of the photo's webaddress that you have copied from the photos properties ready to paste into the pop-up command.

ENJOY

See you at the top,
Dan

Holy cow those pictures are terrific. I've never done anything like that, and seeing the photos inspires me to get out and find some great old, big trees.

I've put that site into my favorites.