Pre-Owned Arizona: The Beauty of It All (Paperback) 1932082158 9781932082159

This book hails the rich diversity of Arizona's natural heritage with tantalizing glimpses of backcountry that most never experience. The text paints a lyrical portrait of six regions touching on ecology, ancient civilizations, history, and folklore. More than 90 color images display the harmony of color and form, the rich textures and vast spaces of Arizona's deserts, mountains, grasslands, and rare streamside niches. The immense, sculpted layers of the Grand Canyon, Quitobaquito's spring in the midst of searing desert, green "sky island" mountains thrusting up from basin floors -- all add to the sometimes subtle, sometimes overwhelming beauty of a still-untamed Arizona that beckons us out beyond the known and the familiar. Swoop from the isolated Arizona Strip up north to the southeastern deserts as seen through the eyes of a man who has known and loved the state for more than three decades. Author Sam Negri shares this passion for Arizona's outdoors, cultures, and storied past, enhanced by the people he's met along the way. From the Arizona Strip, he swings across the wild sandstone stretches and hidden canyons of Navajo and Hopi country. He skims the forested mountains of central Arizona, the piney territory of deer, elk, bear, and cougar, before threading along an exotic swath of marshy bird sanctuaries and surreally sculpted desert mountains where the Colorado River splits Arizona from Nevada and California. Cutting eastward near the border with Mexico, Negri remembers El Camino del Diablo the Devil's Highway, where parched travelers succumbed to the desert heat. He reaches the final surprise of towering mountains, lush with forest and migrating tropical wildlife, jutting up from the southeastern desert grasslands. Book jacket.