Photographs and stories of California s majestic fourteeners Mount Whitney, Mount Shasta, Mount Williamson, and the loftiest peaks of the High Sierra California s Fourteeners, or mountains over 14,000 feet have long teased the imaginations and challenged the fortitude of mountaineers. Photographer David Stark Wilson, who often climbed with his friend and fellow photographer the late Galen Rowell, captures the treacherous beauty of these peaks. Having spent many a night camped near their summits, waiting for the light that would best convey their magnificence, his photographs are simply breathtaking. Well-known climber and historian Steve Roper weaves a tapestry of historical data, personal anecdote, climbing mythology, and natural history into an energetic narrative accompanied by accounts of historic first ascents, tragic accidents, glorious discoveries, and legendary figures from John Muir to Norman Clyde. No better pair could be found to do justice to California s Fourteeners: between them, they have well over eighty years of climbing experience. Roper states in his introduction, We mountaineers who lust after the highest peaks in a state, or a nation, or a continent can hardly explain such endeavors. Nonetheless, the admiration he and Wilson carry for these grand mountains, and for those who have attempted to climb them, shines through in Above All.