Peak Experiences in the Himalayas and Alps

PORTRAIT OF NEPAL, photographs and text by Kevin Bubriski (Chronicle Books, $24.95 paper, $40 hardcover) and THE TRAVELER: An American Odyssey in the Himalayas, text by Eric Hansen, photographs by Hugh Swift (Sierra Club Books, $25 hardcover).

No color, few mountain vistas, a mere handful of temples and other sacred structures--Kevin Bubriski’s photographs are not the usual Himalayan-exotic, coffee-table stuff. Most of his shots, in fact, are of people: white-shawled women sweeping up a misty square, two kneeling children holding scythes, the Kancha Lama with prayer beads and reflective sunglasses, know-it-all teen-age girls with rings in their noses, a plaintive-looking servant boy dressed literally in tatters. The book might as well have been called “Portraits of Nepalis.”

The work is striking, in any case. Working with a cumbersome 4-by-5 view camera, developing film in a tent darkened by yak hair blankets, drying negatives with the heat of candles, Bubriski has achieved an eerily timeless and universal quality with his pristine blacks and whites and grays; these could be 100-year-old photos from a variety of cultures in an ethnographic museum somewhere. The brief text blocks seem clumsy and banal in comparison with the visual images.

“The Traveler” roams through Nepal but also through Pakistan, Tajikistan, Bhutan and Tibet. Swift’s photographs are in color--intense, sometimes almost garish, color. There are people here, too, but also mountain scapes, buildings, objects and signs (e.g., a billboard near Annapurna reading, “We request that to enter the temple of Muktinath with shoes and snapping idols of god and godess is extremely prohibited”). The text is lively and full of anecdote, much of it about photographer Swift, himself, who died suddenly in 1991. There is also a brief appreciation of the photos of Bubriski.

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WALKING EASY IN THE SWISS ALPS by Chet & Carolee Lipton (Gateway Books, $9.95 paper) and MOTORCYCLE JOURNEYS THROUGH THE ALPS by John Hermann (Whitehorse Press, $19.95 paper).

The Alps are neither as high nor as (relatively) unspoiled as the Himalayas, and they don’t seem to engender the same sort of philosophical musings on the part of visitors. They do seem to make a lot of people want to hike, though. “Walking Easy” makes the case that treks need not be heroically strenuous--that even, say, a retired Bloomingdale’s executive and his wife (which is what the authors are) can do it. Included are descriptions of some 44 main itineraries and 72 side trips, presented in a pleasantly informal tone.

If you’d rather soar around Alpine hairpin turns on two wheels than hike, “Motorcycle Journeys” is for you. These journeys, 49 of them in all--with optional side trips--are outlined in straightforward, workaday fashion. This is more an instructional book than a piece of reading material. Route maps are included.

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THE BUZZWORM MAGAZINE GUIDE TO ECOTRAVEL by the Editors of Buzzworm Magazine (Buzzworm, $9.95 paper) and ECO TOURS AND NATURE GETAWAYS: A Guide to Environmental Vacations Around the World by Carole Berglie and Alice M. Geffen (Clarkson Potter, $15 paper).

“EcoTravel (sic),” write the editors of the earnestly environmentalist Buzzworm Magazine, “is about responsible tourism that conserves environments, sustains the well-being of local people and has a positive impact on the threatened areas of our fragile planet.” Sort of like stopping for a beer and a sandwich in a rundown neighborhood of Paris? Well, no. What they have in mind is more like searching for narwhals by kayak in Canada’s Northwest Territories or trekking the Sahara with Tuaregs or mountain biking into Pakistan from China. (Then can we have a beer?) Included are specifics for 100 expeditions, with particulars on the tour operators offering each trip.

Berglie and Geffen define “ecotourism” in the words of Elizabeth Boo of the World Wildlife Fund, who calls it simply “nature travel that contributes to conservation.” Their book contains a lot more background information and general advice than the Buzzworm volume, and is divided by geographical regions.

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Quick Trips:

A CAT ABROAD: The Further Adventures of Norton, the Cat Who Went to Paris, and His Human by Peter Gethers (Crown Press, $16 hardcover.)

Spunky kitty goes to the Super Bowl, to Spago, to Provence and Spain and Italy, comes back home to New York; “His Human” writes rather witty, rather wide-eyed prose about adventures. Those who like this kind of thing will love this kind of thing, helas.

IRELAND: The Complete Guide and Road Atlas , third edition (Globe Pequot Press, $19.95 paper).

Background information, shopping and transportation advice, hotels and restaurants, driving tours, a gazetteer for 55 main Irish towns and cities, and a 16-page color atlas.

Books to Go appears the second and fourth week of every month.