About the Book

This entertaining collection of historical photographs, amusing newspaper accounts, reminiscences and letters celebrates the capricious antics that the Rockies and Selkirks summoned in Victorian residents and visitors. From climbers, cowboys, cooks and shopkeepers to hunters, guides, photographers and poets, these were people with a mania for mountains, beauty and challenge. It led them to draw maps, take fine photographs, analyze the rocks and geological structures around them, create fine paintings and, in general, plunge into the unknown and write about their wonderful adventures. Rocky Mountain Madness offers up a miscellany of their images and writings, including accounts of occasional accomplishment, accomplished adventure, adventurous rambling and rambling discourse.