We are very excited to announce pre-orders for our book, Pacific Crest Trail: A Journey in Photographs. The book consists of large, high quality landscape images from our Pacific Crest Trail thru hike. It flows sequentially, beginning at the Mexican border and proceeding north to Canada. Each individual photograph is a piece of art. As a collection, they visually tell the story of the landscapes along the Pacific Crest Trail, from the deserts of Southern California, through the high passes of the Sierras, and into the rain forests and volcanoes of Oregon and Washington. All pre-ordered books will be signed by Chris, and will ship in late February.
Here is a peek behind the scenes at the work we’ve done to make this book a reality.
Backpacking the 2,660-mile trail with a keen eye for composition, light, and color was of course the first step. Shutterbug reached Canada with 13,000 images from the 5.5 month hike.
The next challenge was to narrow the selection down to roughly a hundred of the best images. To be included, a photograph had to distill the essence of a place, representing a particular section of the trail. This selection process took hundreds of hours.
While Shutterbug edited photos, North Star researched paper types, cover cloths, page sizing, bindings, inks, and printers. We are happy to report that Pacific Crest Trail: A Journey in Photographs will be printed in Minneapolis, MN by Shapco, a highly regarded printer with good environmental practices. The electricity used to produce our book will come from renewable wind energy, the ink is soy-based, and the paper is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
Concurrently, we were also making many design choices. We flipped through hundreds of art books in libraries and bookstores to spark new ideas for our cover, captions, and overall layout. The MyFonts website helped us compare font options, each of which would lend the book a different feel. We were constantly testing out ideas, and visualizing photos that would be paired on facing pages, in the Adobe Lightroom book module. After wrapping up our design choices, we moved to InDesign for the final layout.
In January, the color separation and proofing process will begin. By the end of February we’ll get to see the project as a physical book! We hope you are as excited as we are! If you want a signed edition of one of the first books off the press, please visit our pre-order page.
Wandering the Wild 
Congrats!
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Thanks!
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Just ordered mine. I am so excited that your book Is being printed— it will make it easier to share your adventure with others. A BIG. Congratulations.
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We’re excited to share the finished product with everyone in two months. Thank you very much for your support!
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Just ordered! So excited to see the final product and so amazed by the work you’ve put into this! THANK YOU!
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Hey Shivers, hope the book brings back many happy memories from your own PCT hike. Creating the book has been a whole new type of adventure and challenge compared to hiking the trail.
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congratulations – I know how hard you both worked for this. Can’t wait to get my book
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Thanks Elif! Chris actually kindly offered to include me as a co-author because he knows how much work I’ve put into this book. We decided on a mention on the copyright page though, because his photos are the star of this book, and I wouldn’t want to take away from that.
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Done! Can’t wait to see it. Congratulations! Dave and I are so excited for you. :)
Sasha
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Woohoo! Thanks for supporting our hiking and photography lifestyle Sasha.
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We need these photographs and others taken on all the national scenic trails to tell us where they were taken, when, and by whom, to become a part of the sequential recording of the trail for posterity and for scientific elucidation, as well as incentives for adventure. Books are obsolete.
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Bubba, our blog already includes hundreds of photos from the PCT, complete with detailed location information. Our PCT photo book serves a different purpose. It contains only the absolute best images from the hike, most of which we did not post on the blog. Plus, in today’s world, people are constantly multitasking, especially while online. Our book will encourage the viewer to slow down and focus on each image, the same way backpacking helps one to focus. You are correct that books predominantly containing text are being replaced, but sales of high quality art and photography books continue to rise.
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Excited to see the finished product of all your hard work and experience the trail through the book. Congrats :)
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Thanks Alex! Hugs to the Traviss family.
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Just ordered mine! I know from the quality of pics on your blog the book will be awesome!
I’m gearing up for the PCT in 2013 and as a newby backpacker have learned a lot reading your blog, thank you! Have narrowed my backpack search down to either an Osprey Aether 60 or an Atmos 65. Any comment on those? Tent will likely be a FC UL2, as I am 6’1″ and would like more room than a UL1. Most other gear has been purchased. Still trying to decide whether I really need a down jacket considering that I have long underwear, a fleece and rain gear. 4 months from now I’ll be on the PCT!
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Thanks for ordering, Dwane! We haven’t tried either of those backpacks, so we can’t comment on them, except that they are both relatively heavy packs. For warmth we each carried a Patagonia Houdini wind jacket and a thin insulated jacket. With jackets, as with all equipment, we recommend testing it on short hikes first to see what works best for you. Good luck on your PCT hike — very exciting!
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Congratulations, I have nominated your blog for the 2012 Blog of the Year award. Your Blog inspired me this year immensely especially all the great Photographs of your PCT Hike.
Rules can be found at: http://lostswissmiss.com/2012/12/29/blog-of-the-year-award-2012/
PS. Please inform when you ship your Book overseas ;)
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Thank you very much! We’re gratified that you enjoyed this blog so much.
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I know your business is none of my business, but this project seems like a natural for a guest post on The Luminous Landscape. ( http://luminous-landscape.com/index.shtml )
If you haven’t considered it, maybe it’s worth a query to Michael Reichmann. You’d certainly get a lot of exposure into the right market.
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That’s a great website and I’ve long been a reader. Thanks for the excellent idea, Dave!
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