A remarkable mountaineer and photographer, Pat Morrow, after living for several decades in Alberta, moved back onto the western side of the Rockies, in 2008, to Invermere.

Morrow has provided photos for many books and also written Beyond Everest - Quest for the Seven Summits (Camden House), a "classic" that sold all of its 20,000 soft cover, and 1200 hardcovers, back in the late 1980s. "It's amazing how things have changed on Everest," he says, "and, indeed, on most of the other peaks in that series. Commercialization on several of the peaks has resulted in overcrowding and controversy." Beyond Everest describes the pain-staking logistics that went into climbing the highest peak on all seven continents.

Adventures in Photography (Hurtig, 176 pgs, 88 colour photos, soft cover, ISBN 0-88830-323-8. $19.95 US/CDN) is a collaboration of four Canadian photographers: Pat Morrow, Janis Kraulis, Greg Stott, and Ron Watts. The photos range from a frosty shot of Sir Edmund Hillary toasting Neil Armstrong at the North Pole to a star-streaked time exposure of Ayers Rock.

Morrow provided the photos for Jeremy Schmidt's Himalayan Passage - Seven Months in the High Country of Tibet, Nepal, China, India and Pakistan (The Mountaineers, 336 pgs, 50 colour photos, soft cover, ISBN 0-89886-343-0; hard cover ISBN 0-89886-262-0. Soft cover $23.75 US/CDN; Hard cover $32.15 US/CDN). The story follows four friends on a 10,000 km. epic journey in 1987 on bike, truck and foot around the Himalayas.

Pat Morrow also provided the foreword to Morning Light: Triumph at Sea & Tragedy on Everest written by 87-year-old Margaret Griffiths, stepmother of Blair Griffiths, the CBC camera man who was killed on a Everest 1982 expedition.

Working with author/mountaineer Sharon Wood and his former publisher Frank Edwards of Bungalo Books, Pat Morrow has produced a "coffee tablet" iBook, Everest: High Expectations (iTunes $9.99) to mark the 30th anniversary of Canada's first expedition to Mount Everest. It records how the combined efforts of that expedition and the Everest Light Expedition in 1986 placed Canada on the international mountaineering map. It contains video clips, audio clips, over 140 stills, and around 50,000 words. "Our expeditions were among the last to attempt ascents of Everest by fair means," says Morrow. In separate Afterword chapters, both Sharon Wood and Pat Morrow make candid observations on how their lives were affected by Everest experiences and they provide frank assessments of the change in climbers' attitudes and "the plummet of standards on the mountain today." Visit: www.patmorrow.com/current.html

BOOKS: (partial list only)

The Yukon (Whitecap, 1979) with Andrew Hume
Calgary (Whitecap, 1980) with Carol Baker
Edmonton (Whitecap, 1980) with Carol Baker
Beyond Everest - Quest For the Seven Summits (Camden House, 175 pgs, 125 colour photos, soft cover, ISBN O-920656-46-3. $42.00 US/CDN)
The Yukon (Firefly, 1997). With Baiba Morrow.
Everest: High Expectations (iTunes $9.99)

PHOTO: Pat Morrow with Baiba Morrow

[BCBW 2012] "Photography" "Outdoors"