Hyper Arid is the first comprehensive photographic book on all of the worlds extreme deserts (defined for the purposes of this book as those that receive no ore than 4 inches of precipitation per year) the most remote & inhospitable places on earth. It is also a visual adventure story by one of the worlds top expedition photographers who has spent the last 15 years on this epic body of work. The stunning & surreally beautiful photographs are enriched with stories from his adventures in the worlds most difficult places: smuggling his aircraft into Libya getting arrested fro spying in Iran crashing into a tree in Western China & into the ocean off the coast of Mexico. The book is a comprehensive exploration of virtually every dune field & patch of barren ground that add up to the last great class of wilderness left on our planet. To visualize these remote places in a unique way Steinmetz learned how to fly the worlds lightest & slowest aircraft a motorized paraglider. This experimental foot launched aircraft consists of a backpack motor & a parachute style wing that lets him fly low & slow to take pictures of places that have never been seen before. Together these extraordinary places are like a disparate family of co evolved landscapes each similar but uniquely beautiful.