Off Trail Adventures In Baja California

"Off-Trail Adventures in Baja California describes--and maps and illustrates--nine hikes on islands, along coastal outcrops, and other special places where geography, geology, and ecology meet in singular ways"--Provided by publisher.

This single volume reference resource offers students, scholars, and general readers alike an in-depth background on Mexico, from the complexity of its pre-Columbian civilizations to its social and political development in the context of Western civilization. How did modern Mexico become a nation of multicultural diversity and rich indigenous traditions? What key roles do Mexico's non-Western, pre-Columbian indigenous heritage and subsequent development as a major center in the Spanish colonial empire play the country's identity today? How is Mexico today both Western and non-Western, part Native American and part European, simultaneously traditional and modern? Modern Mexico is a thematic encyclopedia that broadly covers the nation's history, both ancient and modern; its government, politics, and economics; as well as its culture, religion traditions, philosophy, arts, and social structures. Additional topics include industry, labor, social classes and ethnicity, women, education, language, food, leisure and sport, and popular culture. Sidebars, images, and a Day in the Life feature round out the coverage in this accessible, engaging volume. Readers will come to understand how Mexico and the Mexican people today are the result of the processes of transculturation, globalization, and civilizational contact.

Hilltops surrounded by farmland in southern Wisconsin turn out to be the eroded remnants of an ancient archipelago. An island in the Yellow Sea where Korean tourists flock is the peak of a flooded mountain rising from a drowned continental shelf. From a mountaintop shrine to Genghis Khan in Inner Mongolia, the silhouette of a Silurian seascape can be spotted. On the shores of Hudson Bay, where polar bears patrol the Arctic tundra, a close look unveils what was a tropical coastline encrusted with corals nearly 450 million years ago. The geologist Markes E. Johnson invites readers on a journey through deep time to find the traces of ancient islands. He visits a dozen sites around the globe, looking above and below today’s waterlines to uncover how landscapes of the past are preserved in the present. Going back 500 million years to the Cambrian through the Pleistocene 125,000 years ago, this book reconstructs how “paleoislands” appeared under different climatic conditions and environmental constraints. Finding vestiges of prehistoric ecologies, Johnson emphasizes the complexity of island ecosystems and the importance of preserving these significant sites. Inviting and accessible, this book is a travelogue that takes readers through time as well as space. Islands in Deep Time shares the adventure of exploring striking locations across geologic eras and issues a passionate call for their conservation.

"The landscape of the Sonoran Desert Region varies dramatically from parched desert lowlands to semiarid tropical forests and frigid subalpine meadows... "A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert" takes readers deep into its vast expanse, looking closely at the relationships of plants and animals with the land and people, through time and across landscapes"--

The stories featured in Baja California Adventures take place during a span of almost sixty years of travel in the rugged, parched, yet hauntingly attractive peninsula. The author kept detailed notes on most of his trips then fleshed out this skeleton in a narrative that places the reader in the role of participant in the adventure. Thus, one feels the bite of the 4WD tires into the desert sand, newly hard-packed by the moisture of a quick-moving thunderstorm. The author describes the excitement of finding Indian petroglyphs, arrowheads, or clay ollas in remote canyons. Because Mr. Tiscareño is also a pilot, many of the trips included here involve mention of the special immigration rules for private fly-in tourists. Finally, there are Baja adventures in the pine-clad granite fortress that is the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir in the northern part of the peninsula. Here, the author joined other veteran Bajeños in hoof-and-boot or horse-assisted explorations. In short, this book should be inspiration to those readers who want to visit Baja California, particularly the less tourist-trod destinations. Armchair travelers will derive vicarious pleasure without the effort of going there themselves.

A where-to, how-to guide to one of the most interesting places on earth, describing the full spectrum of adventure available in Baja California, Mexico. Scuba diving, hiking, backpacking, fishing, boating, bicycling, and windsurfing are just some of the exciting activities covered. THE guide to outdoor activities in Baja.

Few places in the world can claim such a diversity of species as the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez), with its 6,000 recorded animal species estimated to be half the number actually living in its waters. So rich are the Gulf's water that over a half-million tons of seafood are taken from them annuallyÑand this figure does not count the wasted by-catch, which would triple or quadruple that tonnage. This timely book provides a benchmark for understanding the Gulf's extraordinary diversity, how it is threatened, and in what ways it isÑor should beÑprotected. In spite of its dazzling richness, most of the Gulf's coastline now harbors but a pale shadow of the diversity that existed just a half-century ago. Recommendations based on sound, careful science must guide Mexico in moving forward to protect the Gulf of California. This edited volume contains contributions by twenty-four Gulf of California experts, from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. From the origins of the Gulf to its physical and chemical characteristics, from urgently needed conservation alternatives for fisheries and the entire Gulf ecosystem to information about its invertebrates, fishes, cetaceans, and sea turtles, this thought-provoking book provides new insights and clear paths to achieve sustainable use solidly based on robust science. The interdisciplinary, international cooperation involved in creating this much-needed collection provides a model for achieving success in answering critically important questions about a precious but rapidly disappearing ecological treasure.