Ansel Adams, at the age of 36, was commissioned to prepare a book of his photographs taken along the world famous John Muir Trail as a tribute to Walter A. Starr, Jr., a young American mountaineer killed in a climbing accident.

Comprised of fifty photographs of the Sierra Nevada - many never published in book form again - the book is a most exquisite portrait of the mountain world of the High Sierra in California.

Included is Adams' foreword to the 1938 edition, an introductory essay by William Turnage telling the touching story behind the original book - and brief excerpts from the Sierra Club's current edition of the classic STARR'S GUIDE TO THE JOHN MUIR TRAIL further illuminate this story. A map of the entire length of the Trail is printed on the endpapers.