David Muench

When first published, Desert Images was a watershed project in the nascent environmental movement bringing together two titans of American literature and art in their heyday. Still resonating all these decades later, Muench s evocative photography and Abbey s fiery, poetic text remain an unsurpassed tribute to this extraordinary American landscape. Those who imagine that the desert is merely a monotonous vista of sand and rock will be surprised by the variety of landforms, plants, and other natural phenomena shown on these pages. As Abbey wrote, For some of those who have learned not only to live in but also to love the desert, it offers rewards greater than its visual appeal to the sense of beauty the promise implicit in all that rugged wildness, that open, unfenced, untrammeled space the sense of adventure, the reality of freedom, the hope of a refuge. This photographic and literary passport to a great American wilderness will be treasured by all those who cherish the natural world.

This portrait of Sandia, the mountain backdrop that dwarfs Albuquerque's sprawl, offers a sense of place through the eyes of a photographer and the words of a writer. Fascinated by Sandia, by the light of its dawns and sunsets, by its seasons, by the power of its altitude, photographer David Muench shows us a brilliant autumn, the sparkle of snow, an April explosion of cactus blooms, a summer summit garden of wildflowers, the marvel of the mountain's rock forms.