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Bradford Washburn: A Life of Exploration

By Michael Sfraga 2004. 7 x 10 inches. 280 pages. B&W photographs and maps. Bibliography. Notes. Index. ISBN 0-87071-010-9. Paperback, $24.95. Table of Contents

"You recognize the explorer in Bradford Washburn at first sight. There is something about his eyes, the set of the chin . . . the consistent energy of mind and spirit." -Ansel Adams

From Denali to Mt. Everest, from the Grand Canyon to the Alps, mountaineering legend Bradford Washburn has explored, climbed, mapped, and photographed some of the most beautiful and challenging landscapes on Earth.

Bradford Washburn: A Life of Exploration is the first book to detail Washburn's multi-faceted life and achievements. In his career of over forty years as Director of the Boston Museum of Science, Washburn wrote numerous books and articles, many for the National Geographic Society; created groundbreaking maps; and photographed breathtaking vistas.

Washburn is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of London's Royal Geographic Society, and an authority on Alaska's mountains and glaciers. A licensed pilot since 1934, he was an early advocate of air-dropping supplies to high-altitude mountain camps. He urged the use of high-frequency radio for communication between such camps, and researched wireless communications, aerial film, cold-weather survival techniques, and cold-weather search and rescue operations for the U.S. military.

Michael Sfraga's engaging biography recounts Washburn's adventures and accomplishments as a mountaineer, photographer, and scientist. In examining this rich life and work, Sfraga links Washburn's achievements to significant changes in our scientific and geographic understanding.

"Perhaps the central visual message of Washburn's aerial photographs is the revelation of how the earth works. This is at once good science and expressive art. All the earth's secrets, its geological movements, its upheavals and erosions, the slow march and retreat of glaciers, the essential interconnectedness of the earth's bones, veins, and muscles, are laid out before us with exemplary clarity."
-Clifford S. Ackley, Ruth and Carl Shapiro Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts