Ed Darack is an American author and photographer. He is the author of The Final Mission of Extortion 17, about the August 6, 2011 downing of Extortion 17, Victory Point: Operations Red Wings and Whalers – The Marine Corps' Battle for Freedom in Afghanistan, about Operation Red Wings and Operation Whalers, two American military operations that took place in 2005 in eastern Afghanistan'sKunar Province. He is the author of three other books in addition to Victory Point, including 6194: Denali Solo and Wind - Water - Sun: A Solo Kayak Journey Along Baja California's Desert Coastline. Darack is also an author of magazine articles about a range of subjects, a photographer published in media throughout the world, and a cartographer.
Wind - Water - Sun: A Solo Kayak Journey Along Baja California's Desert Coastline, an adventure travel narrative published by Poudre Canyon Press in December 1998, recounts Darack's two-month, 850 mile solo sea kayaking / photography expedition along the Sea of Cortez coastline of the Baja California Peninsula from near the small village of :es:Golfo de Santa Clara|El Golfo de Santa Clara of northern Sonora, Mexico on the Colorado River Delta, to the Cape region of southern Baja California Sur. The book includes text, over 100 of Darack's color photographs of the coastline, and a 16-map full-color atlas of the coastline at a scale of 1:500,000 created by Darack.
''6194: Denali Solo''
6194: Denali Solo, an adventure travel narrative self-published by Darack in March, 1995, covers his two attempts to solo-climbMount McKinley, the highest mountain in North America and one of the Seven Summits. Darack succeeded in climbing McKinley, via the West Buttress route, on June 29, 1991 when he was 20 years old, possibly the youngest to make a solo ascent of the mountain. 6194, endorsed by Galen Rowell, was nominated for the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature in 1995.
Magazine article works
Darack has written articles for a number of different magazines, including Air & Space / Smithsonian, Weatherwise Magazine, Alpinist Magazine, Leatherneck Magazine, The Marine Corps Gazette, Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute, Climbing Magazine, Rock & Ice Magazine, Nature Photographer Magazine, Alaska Geographic, Sea Kayaker Magazine, and others. Topics about which he writes include military, science, weather, travel, geography, mountaineering, adventure, and aviation, among others. Darack's articles have been referenced and discussed by a range of media throughout the world, including Stern, The Daily Telegraph, Yahoo News, and others.
Photography
Ed Darack is a stock and magazine photographer. Darack's photographs cover a range of topics, including military, travel, landscape, nature, aerial, aviation, science, weather, adventure travel, and others. Darack's photographs have been published in a range of media types throughout the world. His photography publishing credits include Smithsonian, Air & Space/Smithsonian, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, Scholastic, Random House, Weather Channel, The BBC, Time, The National Geographic Society, Bank of America, Forbes, and numerous others. Darack's photographs have appeared on the covers of a number of magazines, organizational publications, and books, including:
The hardcover version of the book Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman by Jon Krakauer featured Darack's photograph of a silhouette of an Afghan fighter at dawn on its cover. Published by Random House, Where Men Win Glory peaked at number 2 on The New York TimesBest Seller List on the week of October 4, 2009. Darack's image was also used on a number of foreign versions of Where Men Win Glory, including those published in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy.
Darack's image, "Snow Covered Mountain Range, Sunset, Elevated View, Canada" featuring King Peak was used as the centerpiece of Canada Post's stamp commemorating the Canadian Rangers. Released on March 3, 2003, the stamp had a print run of 3,000,000.
Cartography
Darack is a cartographer who has published over one hundred maps, including a full-color, highly detailed atlas of Baja California's Sea of Cortez coastline, comprising 16 individual 1:500,000 scale maps. Other maps of his of note include those of South America and individual Andean peaks including Aconcagua.
Darack appeared on the National Geographic / Smithsonian television documentary Titanic: Case Closed, where he explained and discussed mirages and shot photographs of them in the California desert.
