The Man Who Beat Death Valley

As thrilling a tale as the Donner Party, this graphic novel tells the true story of William Lewis Manly, who risked his life to save pioneer families from dying in a barren wasteland.THE MAN WHO BEAT DEATH VALLEY reveals how Death Valley earned its name, told for the first time in a graphic novel.

Death Valley, its harsh and rugged landscape established a national monument in 1933 and named a national park in 1994, has long held a fascination for visitors, even before it became tourist friendly. Shortly after the first visit of nonnative inhabitants, a party of forty-niners looking for a shortcut to the goldfields of California crossed this land with tragic results, inadvertently giving the valley its moniker. Despite the immense suffering in their midst, prospectors began exploring the area looking for mineral wealth. Boomtowns formed, prospered, and died all within a few years, most disappearing completely into the desert. Adding to Death Valley's mystique was the shameless self-promotion of Death Valley Scotty, which lasted for a period spanning more than 50 years.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER ONE OF CBC'S BEST CANADIAN NONFICTION BOOKS OF 2022 For fans of Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild, the riveting story of the unsolved disappearance of an American backpacker in India—one of at least two dozen tourists who have met a similar fate in the remote and storied Parvati Valley. For centuries, India has enthralled Westerners looking for an exotic getaway, a brief immersion in yoga and meditation, or, in rare cases, a true pilgrimage to find spiritual revelation. Justin Alexander Shetler, an inveterate traveler trained in wilderness survival, was one such seeker. In his early thirties, Justin quit his job at a tech startup and set out on a global journey—across the United States by motorcycle, then down to South America, and on to the Philippines, Thailand, and Nepal—in search of authentic experiences and meaningful encounters while documenting his travels on Instagram. His enigmatic character and magnetic personality gained him a devoted following who lived vicariously through his adventures. But the ever-restless explorer was driven to seek out ever-greater extremes, and greater risks, in what had become a personal quest—his own hero’s journey. In 2016, he made his way to the Parvati Valley, a remote and rugged corner of the Indian Himalayas steeped in mystical tradition and shrouded in darkness and danger. There he spent weeks studying under the guidance of a sadhu, an Indian holy man, living and meditating in a cave. At the end of August, accompanied by the sadhu, he set off on a spiritual journey to a holy lake—one from which he would never return. Lost in the Valley of Death is about one man’s search to find himself, in a country where, for many Westerners, the path to spiritual enlightenment can prove fraught, even treacherous. But it is also a story about all of us and the ways, sometimes extreme, we seek fulfillment in life.

William Lewis Manly (1820-1903) and his family left Vermont in 1828, and he grew to manhood in Michigan and Wisconsin. On hearing the news of gold in California, Manly set off on horseback, joining an emigrant party in Missouri. Death Valley in '49 (1894) contains Manly's account of that overland journey. Setting out too late in the year to risk a northern passage thorugh the Sierras, the group takes the southern route to California, unluckily choosing an untried short cut through the mountains. This fateful decision brings the party through Death Valley, and Manly describes their trek through the desert, as well as the experiences of the Illinois "Jayhawkers" and others who took the Death Valley route. Manly's memoirs continue with his trip north to prospecting near the Mariposa mines, a brief trip back east via the Isthmus, and his return to California and another try at prospecting on the North Fork of the Yuba at Downieville in 1851. He provides lively ancedotes of life in mining camps and of his visits to Stockton, Sacramento, and San Francisco.

Originally published in 1995, soon after Death Valley National Park became the fifty-third park in the US park system, The Explorer's Guide to Death Valley National Park was the first complete guidebook available for this spectacular area. Now in its third edition, this is still the only book that includes all aspects of the park. Much more than just a guidebook, it covers the park's cultural history, botany and zoology, hiking and biking opportunities, and more. Information is provided for all of Death Valley's visitors, from first-time travelers just learning about the area to those who are returning for in-depth explorations. The book includes updated point-to-point logs for every road within and around the park, as well as more accurate maps than those in any other publication. With extensive input from National Park Service resource management, law enforcement, and interpretive personnel, as well as a thorough bibliography for suggested reading, The Explorer's Guide to Death Valley National Park, Third Edition is the most up-to-date, accurate, and comprehensive guide available for this national treasure.

Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield are trapped in Death Valley! Led astray by the promise of hidden treasure, the Sweet Valley gang, is in serious danger.

This is the history of Death Valley, where that bitter stream the Amargosa dies. It embraces the whole basin of the Amargosa from the Panamints to the Spring Mountains, from the Palmettos to the Avawatz. And it spans a century from the earliest recollections and the oldest records to that day in 1933 when much of the valley was finally set aside as a National Monument. This is the story of an illusory land, of the people it attracted and of the dreams and delusions they pursued-the story of the metals in its mountains and the salts in its sinks, of its desiccating heat and its revitalizing springs, and of all the riches of its scenery and lore-the story of Indians and horse thieves, lost argonauts and lost mine hunters, prospectors and promoters, miners and millionaires, stockholders and stock sharps, homesteaders and hermits, writers and tourists. But mostly this is the story of the illusions-the illusions of a shortcut to the gold diggings that lured the forty-niners, of inescapable deadliness that hung in the name they left behind, of lost bonanzas that grew out of the few nuggets they found, of immeasurable riches spread by hopeful prospectors and calculating con men, and of impenetrable mysteries concocted by the likes of Scotty. These and many lesser illusions are the heart of its history.

Bonded Leather binding