Updated Field Guide Details the Science and Story of Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument Region

Backcountry Press is proud to announce the release of the second edition of Exploring the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument Region, available January 11, 2026. This expanded and updated field guide brings new information, improved mapping, and refined interpretive content to one of Northern California’s most culturally, biologically, and geologically diverse landscapes.

Designed to deepen understanding as much as inspire exploration, the guide helps readers appreciate the region’s complex human history—from the lifeways of Indigenous peoples and their encounters with Spanish, Mexican, and American settlers, to mining booms, ranching traditions, and the rise and decline of mineral spring health resorts. At the same time, it highlights the natural systems that define the Monument, including rare serpentine soils, extensive oak woodlands, tule elk habitat, free-flowing rivers, and one of the highest concentrations of endemic plant species in California.

The book also places the landscape within deep geologic time. Through a series of carefully described driving routes, readers move through one of the longest-lived subduction zones on Earth, encountering rocks transformed 12–18 miles beneath the surface and viewing two ancient submarine volcanoes—of vastly different ages—that now stand side by side. As science fiction author and longtime California observer Kim Stanley Robinson notes, “Every bioregion deserves a book this good, but very few have them,” adding that the book’s cross-disciplinary approach creates “a kind of bedrock for a living relationship between active readers and the land we live on.”

First published in partnership with a coalition of regional experts, the second edition remains the most comprehensive guide to the Berryessa Snow Mountain area, spanning more than 340,000 acres across seven counties in Northern California. Co-authored by Marc Hoshovsky, Peter Schiffman, Bob Schneider, and Tim Messick, the guide reflects decades of research, field exploration, and conservation involvement. Robinson underscores this long view, writing that “what this book teaches us will help us pass our home intact on to the generations to come.”

Backcountry Press co-owner Allison Poklemba sees the book as part of a broader effort to build public understanding of protected landscapes. “Books like this help build informed communities around public lands,” she said. “When people have access to clear, accurate information, they can explore with more confidence—and care for the places they visit.”

The second edition includes updated access information and recreation recommendations, refined geology explanations and maps, expanded natural-history profiles, new photographs and graphics, and orientation for both casual visitors and readers seeking deeper scientific context.