Naturalist Craig Childs's "utterly memorable and fantastic" study of the desert's dangerous beauty is based on years of adventures in the deserts of the American West (Washington Post). 
Like the highest mountain peaks, deserts are environments that can be inhospitable even to the most seasoned explorers. Craig Childs, who has spent years in the deserts of the American West as an adventurer, a river guide,...

From the author of The Secret Knowledge of Water and Atlas of a Lost World comes a deeply felt essay collection focusing upon a vivid series of desert icons—a sheet of virga over Monument Valley, white seashells in dry desert sand, boulders impossibly balanced. Craig Childs delves into the primacy of the land and the profound nature of the more–than–human.

Beyond what most people think about archaeology -- with its cleanly numbered dates, and discoveries--lies a vibrant and controversial realm of scientists, thieves, and contested land claims. Here, naturalist and adventurer Childs explores the field's transgressions against the cultures it tries to preserve, and pauses to ask: To whom does the past belong? Written in his trademark lyrical style, this book carries readers directly into his adventures...

Craig Childs is lost. In a labyrinth of canyons in the American Southwest where virtually nothing else is alive- barely any vegetation, few signs of wildlife, scant traces of any human precursors in this landscape-Childs and his friend Dirk undertake a fortnight's journey. With as much food and gear as they can carry, and little else but their wiles to help them traverse the inhospitable, unmappable terrain, the two men assume the life-or-death challenge...

"From the author of Apocalyptic Planet, an unsparing, vivid, revelatory travelogue through prehistory that traces the arrival of the First People in North America twenty thousand years ago and the artifacts that enable us to imagine their lives and fates. Scientists squabble over the locations and dates for human arrival in the New World. The first explorers were few, encampments fleeting. At some point in time, between twenty and forty thousand years...

Discusses the planet's inherent instability and susceptibility toward violent natural disasters and climate extremes, challenging beliefs about apocalyptic inevitabilities while revealing how to change humanity's place within the planet's cycles.

"Craig Childs has walked thousands of miles, season after season, into the desert looking for a wildness few people ever witness. In places that should have only desolation and waterless death, in seas of sand dunes and snow-swept high deserts, Childs has discovered an infinitely powerful grace. In the labyrinthine slots and walls within the Grand Canyon, he maps an improbably course toward a chute rumored to be an ancient shortcut through impassable...

The Southwest is easy to love but difficult to understand. The land has diversity, extremes, contrasts, surprises and contradictions.