Field Guide to the Sandia Mountains |  | Creators: Robert Julyan, Mary C. Stuever
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Category: Book
List Price: $21.95
Buy New: $17.98
as of 9/9/2010 12:12 CDT details
You Save: $3.97 (18%)
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Seller: thermite-media
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 688,534
Media: Spiral-bound
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0826336671
Dewey Decimal Number: 508.789
EAN: 9780826336675
ASIN: 0826336671
Publication Date: May 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Each year over 2 million visitors to New Mexicos Sandia Mountains enjoy more than 100 miles of trails, hiking, climbing, running, biking, skiing, and birding, as well as viewing the mountains from hang gliders and hot air balloons. This guide will assist visitors in discovering the diverse natural features of the Sandias. Field Guide to the Sandia Mountains includes sections on ecology, including weather and fire, geology, flora (grasses, flowers, trees) and fauna (arthropods, reptiles and amphibians, birds, mammals), and recreational opportunities. Plant keys and fauna checklists add to the books features. Rather than a comprehensive field guide, the selections offer the most commonly encountered species in each category, presenting information on just over 100 species of flowers, for example, among almost 500 species that can be found in the mountains. A labor of love conceived by the Sandia Ranger District and the New Mexico Friends of the Forest (now known as Friends of the Sandia Mountains), this book is a resource no visitor to the Sandias should be without.
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| Customer Reviews:
Transformative January 11, 2007
Mike Smith (Albuquerque, NM)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is an outstanding book.
Anyone who lives in Albuquerque or within sight of the Sandia Mountains ought to own this. Not only is it co-written by Robert Julyan--who is among New Mexico's most articulate, most knowledgeable, and generally all-around BEST authors--but it's loaded with full-color photographs, bound in such a way as to ensure it will last for years (no matter how many backpacks it's shoved into), clearly organized, and as complete as you could ever ask a book for a general audience to be.
I recently wrote (and compiled photos for) a book about the histories of the towns of the Sandia Mountains, and this field guide was an essential tool in my work.
"Field Guide to the Sandia Mountains" covers the geology, the flora, the fauna, the human history, the place names, and so on, and I don't think I could recommend it more heartily.
Buy it, and let it introduce you, truly introduce you, to the mountains in your backyard.
A labor of love... August 6, 2008
John P. Jones III (Albuquerque, NM, USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
... is how the editors described their work. And indeed it is. Fortunately there was significant community support for this project, in the Albuquerque area, to underwrite the cost of this superlative production, so that the book would be affordable for the many recreational users of these "signature mountains" that form a dramatic backdrop to the city.
The editors assembled a true field of experts from across a spectrum of disciplines to write the various chapters. There are chapters on the ecology, weather, fire issues, geology, flora, fauna and human presence in the mountains. Flora and fauna are subdivided into different chapters, each with its own expert. The editing is superb, rendering a consistent style among the various writers. The book's layout is also superlative, with numerous sharp color pictures of the birds, flowers, insects and trees of the mountain. Particularly thoughtful and useful was grouping the flowers by color that minimizes the search when one is trying to identify a particular flower in the field. The page edges are also color-coded, for faster reference. There are excellent charts, maps, and pictures which explain the geology. The cover picture was selected via a contest.
There is a brief chapter at the end on the hiking trails, but this book is not really a hiking guide (that is a separate volume.) There is also a section at the end for personal notes, as it will be assumed that this guide will be used on numerous occasions, which is certainly one of the "bennies" of living in Albuquerque. The quality paper and spiral binding means that the guide should last as long as the user.
This is the essential Sandia mountain guide, and I cannot envision improvements. The aspens will again be turning, high on La Luz trail, in around a month, and I'll be seeing them, guide in hand. Thanks to all involved in this wonderful "labor of love." It has enriched the lives of the many repeat visitors as well as those who see it only once in a lifetime.
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