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Sunshot: Peril and Wonder in the Gran Desierto (The Southwest Center Series) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Bill Broyles, Michael P. Berman
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.00
Buy New: $16.78
You Save: $7.22 (30%)
New (15) Used (11) Collectible (1) from $10.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 1015552
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 11 x 8.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0816525242
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.9
EAN: 9780816525249
ASIN: 0816525242
Publication Date: March 30, 2006
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Product Description
The Devils Highway crosses a stretch of borderland desert in northern Mexico where many immigrants have traveledand too many have died. It is a despoblado where desperate people defend secret places. But it is also known as El Gran Desiertoa place where stately saguaros stand near aromatic elephant trees, where sand dunes caress the edges of jagged granite mountains, where one can watch bighorn sheep in the morning and whales in the afternoon. Over the years, desert rat Bill Broyles has ventured repeatedly into this sunshot landscape, slogged across its salt flats and sand dunes, and defied its deadly heat. This book chronicles his years of exploration, a vivid and personal introduction to a thorny but ultimately enchanting place that manages to endear itself over time, if it doesnt kill you first. Michael Bermans stark black-and-white photographs capture the desolate beauty of the desert while conveying a sense of Broyles adventures. Gleaned from more than 4,000 images shot with a large-format camera, these exquisite photographs translate the deserts formidable monotone into finely tuned studies of light and represent some of the best photos ever taken of this mysterious region. El Gran Desierto is a grand desert indeed, with beauty, spirit, and mystery rivaling any place on Earth, and anyone captivated by the earlier explorations of Lumholtz, Ives, or Hornadayor by Edward Abbeys love of desert placeswill revel in these modern-day adventures. Sunshot defies the stereotype of a punishing wilderness to show how even the most perilous desert can be alluring if approached with knowledge and respect.
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| Customer Reviews:
Essays on life, living, and an incredible desert December 10, 2006
Of all the books my brother, Bill has written, I most love this one. SUNSTRUCK is about the area of the world on which he is an expert, a remote area of the Sonoran Desert, but more importantly, these are thought-provoking essays on life and living. Even if, like me, you don't usually read essays about the natural world I think you'll appreciate his writing style and world outlook. Bill shares anecdotes about the outdoor life, hiking, those he meets and gets to know in the desert (including la migra and people escaping the border patrol, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, bighorn sheep) that make the reader feel as if they are there with Bill at the moment of encounter.
So I hope you'll enjoy a book about a wondrous place in the world that few people visit, and even fewer understand: El Gran Desierto, the Devil's Highway. Yes, this review is written by the author's sister, but don't hold that against me. Given my proclivity to reading fiction, I might not have picked up this book if my brother hadn't written it. I am so glad I had the opportunity to enjoy his vivid use of language and to vicariously experience some of Bill Broyles' adventures in the desert.
Be careful...be very careful. April 24, 2006
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
It is officially called El Camino del Diablo-The Devil's Highway. It's also known by a variety of other names best left out of this review. It stretches for some 130 miles of desert from Sonoyta, in Mexico's state of Sonora, to Yuma, Arizona, on the Colorado River. There is precious little permanent water and ground temperatures can, and do, reach 150 degrees and more. It includes parts of two national monuments, a national wildlife refuge, and a gunnery range in Arizona not to mention various intities in Mexico. The are can be explored via foot or four-wheel drive vehicle. It can be done. It's done every year by experts and fools, lots of fools, legal and illegal. Many don't make it. It is a killer. If you are intrigued by scorpions, drug smugglers, sidewinders, bandits, illegal aliens, rattlesnakes, sand storms, unbearable heat, lack of water, a military gunnery range, and a host of other unbelievable challenges this is the trip for you. I don't know of any typical travel or guide book that will prepare you for this trip but this book comes as close as any to providing one with a sense of what to expect and when to go. It is probably the very best book ever published about this special place. The author and photographer have a knack of presenting a highly readable, visually accurate account of the dangers and beauty that await the visitor to a place noted author Charles Bowden says "...we finally get to face ourselves because we are alone with life itself." I have done this trip in a four-wheel drive vehicle and can only say be careful...very careful. This is a must read both for the armchair traveler and boots on the ground type.
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