Kevin Fedarko, a native of the degraded coal mining towns near Pittsburgh, and his best friend, photographer, Pete McBride, walk the 750-mile length of the Grand Canyon. On the face of it, his book is a story about hiking and hubris, but there are as many layers to this book as there are strata in the Canyon itself. To hike from Lees Ferry to the Grand Wash Cliffs requires traversing a trail-less wilderness with daytime temperatures routinely above 110 degrees and water sources exceedingly scarce. Much of the hike consists of ascending and descending 1,000 foot cliffs.
So, yes, the book is about adventure and the hazards of becoming overly confident in one of the last parts of the United States this remote. But upon closer look, there are potsherds, petroglyphs, and napped flints indicating that this area is remote only to post-Colonial whites. Moreover, the treatment of Native Americans within the park boundaries has been as awful as it has been everywhere else in North America.
Kevin and Pete meet tribal members who routinely tell them to slow down and focus on rocks beneath their feet, the wind, tiny animals, the spines of an individual cactus. Words of wisdom for all of us.
Above all Fedarko despises encroachment by developers anxious to construct tramways to the canyon bottom, fly hundreds of helicopter trips a day to the banks of the Colorado (he never complains about all the rafting trips that he was once a part of), and the overcrowding that has taken over tso many of the country’s National Parks. He very persuasively argues that one of America’s most spectacular wild places should remain inaccessible.
Then he recognizes how elitist that is and how so much development has been up to tribes whose sole source of income derives from tourism and how important it is for pilgrims from all over the world to have even 15 minutes looking over one of the most spectacular sites on earth.
There is much to think about when following a couple of guys walking for 750 miles.
Thanks, Eric. This book had it all: An epic adventure, a stroll through history, a primer on desert ecology, and a story of friendship and personal growth. Highly recommended!