Leave No Trace: The Vanishing North American Wilderness Hardback - 2011

"You’ve seen plenty of pictures of the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, and Utah’s Canyonlands, we trust. But you’ve rarely seen them this close up, this vivid, and captured by such a passionate eye." ~O- The Oprah Magazine

“From a mountain peak or a canyon rim a wilderness traveler can start to appreciate the vastness of a wild landscape. But even those spectacular views are blocked by adjacent peaks or river bends. Jim Wark's outstanding and mind expanding aerial photographs of American wilderness give us a bird’s eye view that few of us would ever behold without the assistance of his camera. In the process we can experience the artistry of large landscape geologic formations, glaciers, coastlines, unbroken forests, and watersheds that would be impossible for the human eye to ever capture or comprehend. He has added a new dimension to wilderness appreciation. The photos are well matched by Rod Nash’s concise and lyrical essays that convey the history of how these landscapes came to be protected and the colorful characters who firmly planted the wilderness concept into the American tradition, thereby giving us all an enduring legacy of wildness.” ~Michael Brune, Executive Director, Sierra Club

"I’d like to think that we don’t need an aerial photography book to help us appreciate nature and the last wild places in North America, but a new full-color book by photographer Jim Wark and essayist Roderick F. Nash might educate you on just how little you really recognize our wilderness... pretty much anything amazing you can imagine is represented: deserts, hoodoos, coasts, woodlands, tundras, prairies, wetlands, volcanoes, glaciers, dunes and the list goes on.... The essays by wilderness historian Robert Nash help us to see how we’ve gotten to this present day of limited wild places, and they shed light on the continuing struggle to keep our North American wilderness from vanishing for good.  I hate to call Leave No Trace a coffee table book. It seems like so much more than that, but… if you’re searching for a coffee-table-type book as a gift to someone you love, or as a treat to yourself, you’re likely to be really amazed with this choice. Happy viewing and reading." ~Peggy Rowland, Lightgreenstairs.com

"Photographer and pilot Jim Wark has captured aerial images of nature from Alaska, Labrador, Hawaii, the Caribbean, and all points in between. The book has more than 300 color photographs, many of which look like paintings and keep the viewer guessing what the subject is. A Colorado River delta, for example, is suggestive of a snow-covered tree. Wark makes his photography quests solo, flying an Aviat Husky, a high-wing bushplane that enables him to operate from remote, undeveloped areas." ~Air & Space Magazine

As the recipient of the Professional Aerial Photographer Association's lifetime achievement award, Jim Wark has been able to capture more diverse and beautiful landscapes of North America's wilderness areas than almost any photographer in the field. His willingness to explore these undeveloped regions results in some of the most breathtaking aerial photography seen today. Roderick Nash-best known for his book "Wilderness and the American Mind"-is considered America's foremost wilderness historian.