Born from the hand-scribbled trail maps and wilderness passion of its members, Washington's nearly 100-year-old Mountaineers Club established the nonprofit Mountaineers Books in 1960 to express and share its love of the natural outdoors. Hikers, scramblers, serious climbers and Northwest rescue organizations, alike, have relied on Fred Beckey's Cascade Alpine Guides for decades to lead them through this wild mountain range. In addition to their comprehensiveness, the books provide a rare combination of aerial photos with route overlays, three-dimensional illustrated maps, and climbing topos. The section of the North Cascades covered in this volume is roughly a pie-shaped area in the northern section of the range, stretching from the Lake Chelan area up into Canada and west to Bellingham. Except for glaciers and some year-round snow fields, it's mostly dry, lonesome, open country, with beautiful granite spires jutting to the sky. FRED BECKEY is thought to have made more first summits than any American climber, ever, and the Cascades have been his primary playground. The octogenarian is also an accomplished author, having penned The Challenge of the North Cascades and Mount McKinley: North America's Icy Crown, in addition to the three-volume Cascade Alpine Guides and others.