Purchase
The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Though the Heart of the Grand Canyon
Scribner
May 2013
On Sale: May 7, 2013
432 pages
ISBN: 1439159858
EAN: 9781439159859
Kindle: B00ALYY6W8
Hardcover / e-Book
Add to Wish List
Non-Fiction
IN THE TRADITION OF THE PERFECT STORM AND
SEABISCUIT, THE ENGROSSING TALE OF THE FASTEST BOAT
RIDE EVER DOWN THE COLORADO RIVER THROUGH THE GRAND CANYON IN THE WINTER OF 1983, the largest El Niño event on
record—a chain of “superstorms” that swept in from the
Pacific Ocean—battered the entire West. That spring, a
massive snowmelt sent runoff racing down the Colorado River
toward the Glen Canyon Dam, a 710-foot-high wall of concrete
that sat at the head of the most iconic landscape feature in
America, the Grand Canyon. As the water clawed toward the
parapet of the dam, worried federal officials desperately
scrambled to avoid a worst-case scenario: one of the most
dramatic dam failures in history. In the midst of this crisis, beneath the light of a full
moon, a trio of river guides secretly launched a small,
hand-built wooden boat, a dory named the Emerald Mile,
into the Colorado just below the dam’s base and rocketed
toward the dark chasm downstream, where the torrents of
water released by the dam engineers had created a
rock-walled maelstrom so powerful it shifted giant boulders
and created bizarre hydraulic features never previously
seen. The river was already choked with the wreckage of
commercial rafting trips: injured passengers clung to the
remnants of three-ton motorboats that had been turned upside
down and torn to pieces. The chaos had claimed its first
fatality, further launches were forbidden, and rangers were
conducting the largest helicopter evacuation in the history
of Grand Canyon National Park. An insurgent river run under such conditions seemed to
border on the suicidal, but Kenton Grua, the captain of that
dory, was on an unusual mission: a gesture of defiance
unlike anything the river world had ever seen. His aim was
to use the flood as a hydraulic slingshot that would hurl
him and two companions through 277 miles of some of the most
ferocious white water in North America and, if everything
went as planned, catapult the Emerald Mile into
legend as the fastest boat ever propelled—by oar, by motor,
or by the grace of God—through the heart of the Grand Canyon. Grua himself was already something of a mythic figure, a
fearless boatman obsessed with the mysteries of the canyon.
His quest embraced not only the trials of the speed run
itself but also the larger story of his predecessors: the
men who had first discovered the canyon and pioneered its
exploration, as well as those who waged a landmark battle to
prevent it from being hog-tied by a series of massive
hydroelectric dams—a conflict that continues to this day. A writer who has worked as a river guide himself and is
intimately familiar with the canyon’s many secrets, Kevin
Fedarko is the ideal narrator for this American epic. The
saga of the Emerald Mile is a thrilling adventure, as
well as a magisterial portrait of the hidden kingdom of
white water at the bottom of the greatest river canyon on
earth. This book announces Fedarko as a major writing talent
and at last sets forth the full story of an American
legend—the legend of the Emerald Mile.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
| 
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy