Ira Spring
American environmentalist (1918–2003)

Ira Spring (1918–2003) was an American photographer, author, mountaineer and hiking advocate. He was the photographer and co-author, with Harvey Manning and his brother Bob Spring, of the "100 Hikes" series of books published by The Mountaineers. He co-founded the trails advocacy and maintenance organization Washington Trails Association (WTA) along with fellow trails advocate Louise Marshall. In 1998 he published an autobiography entitled "An Ice Axe, a Camera, and a jar of Peanut Butter" detailing his long photographic career on several continents. In recognition of this work in conservation and wilderness-preservation, he was presented with the Roosevelt Conservation Award by President George H. W. Bush in 1992. Spring was born in Jamestown, New York with a twin, Bob, and grew up in Shelton, Washington. He was an army aerial photographer in World War II. He died on June 5, 2003, in Edmonds, Washington of prostate cancer.
References
Modie, Neil (2003-06-06). "Ira Spring dead at 84: Guide had a passion for wild places". The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ira Spring” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.