'Island Alpine' is the work of Quadra Island-based publisher and mountaineer Philip Stone. After 15 years of 'research' and 10 months of production... in 488 pages, Stone describes the hiking and climbing routes on 275 Vancouver Island mountains. The jagged mountain backbone of the Vancouver Island ranges runs uninterrupted 350 kilometres from the Cowichan valley near Victoria (British Columbia's provincial capital) to Quatsino Sound at the north-west end of the island. At the ranges' heart is Strathcona Provincial Park, where peaks soar to over 7,000 feet, attracting climbers to their summits and hikers to wander the ridges and valleys that weave in between.

Routes in the guide range from technical multiday mixed routes to easy walk ups... Photographs (there are over 550 of them) illustrate both the hiking routes and the technical climbing routes established in the Island mountains in over a century of surveying and exploration, and the many millennia of habitation and travel by First Nations people. The lore of early pioneers and the exploits of both world renowned alpinists and local aficionados mix to complete this book as not only a guide for future exploration but as a historical record...

"While writing this guide I kept finding mountains and even whole ranges I had never noticed before," Stone says. "That made me realize just how big the Island is and how little has been climbed. Hopefully this guide will change that by lifting the veil of secrecy off these peaks."

Island Alpine ($39.95) Wild Isle Publications: PO Box 482, Heriot Bay BC V0P

[Excerpts from press release, June, 2003]