KPCW Book Review - A Walk in the Park - Kevin Fedarko

 

A Walk in the Park

In his award-winning book, “The Emerald Mile,” author Kevin Fedarko described the great Colorado River’s 1983 Grand Canyon flood. In his latest effort, “A Walk in the Park” Fadarko along with his friend photographer Peter McBride, relays a more focused and record seeking exploration of the entire length of Grand Canyon National Park on foot. Matt Lindon has this month’s book review.

The best way I know to see The Grand Canyon is not on a cushy raft trip but on foot, where you smell and taste, feel and hear every detail, including the distances and the silence.  With backpacks and boots, blood and blisters, heat and hieroglyphics, searing sunshine and epic storms, “A Walk in the Park,” is a combination of self-flagellation and hubris. It arcs from the painful lessons of the Tenderfoot to the triumph of will, wisdom and experience, eventually ending as a mind-numbing march to an existential finish. 

Fedarko is a great writer with a zinger on every page, incredible descriptions and metaphors.  Some of the best parts of this book are Fedarko’s litany of the geology and stratigraphy of the Grand Canyon, From the billon year gap in the Great Unconformity layer, to the oldest exposed rocks in the world.  His unrivaled explanation of their stargazing of the Celestial Vault, solidifying their three-dimensional insignificance, is a powerful portion of the narrative.  So is the apparent movement of the Anthropomorphisms painted on the rocks nearly 4000 years ago, where the canyon is alive and speaking to him.  In between is the sad story of the local Havasupai tribe’s struggle for relevance and the rampant Eco-tourism depicted by air traffic in Helicopter Alley.

These epic hiking trips were Fedarko’s personal search for meaning and the familiar struggle for fulfillment in a brutal, living and moving, natural environment that cares not for him, or his quest.  Despite its hyperbole this is a fun and funny story, like an endless family hike or a farcical fraternity road trip, complete with mishaps and miscalculations, tragedy and triumph.  In the end, he does find meaning in the journey, if not the destination, in the coda of its completion.

Wild country reveals itself to us in its own time, to those who are curious, patient, resilient and well prepared.  Despite his cautions, Fedarko’s “A Walk in the Park” will spur a new horde of cross-canyon adventurers, seeking out the inner chasms’ myths and legends, records and experiences.  Will they flood the Park with novice and expert hikers alike, all taking with them their little piece of heaven or hell.  Hopefully they will leave a little bit of soul for the rest of us, who might be content to just read the book, look into the void, or simply to know that it is there.

Kevin Fedarko’s “A Walk in the Park” is available at our local libraries.

For KPCW, this is Matt Lindon.

Park City Ski Patrol Support

         First let me say that I consider all Ski Patrols as the chief focus of customer service and safety.  From their avalanche control work to medical assistance, and from skier safety to public information, they are the kingpin of mountain operations.  To underestimate their contribution should be considered hubris if not fatal.  My friend suffered a serious injury at The Canyons in 2020 (see her letter of thanks in your April 8 edition) and the emphatic professionalism of the responding Patrol was exemplary, if not lifesaving.  I personally have had interactions with the Patrol for 45 years, in the resort, side country and back country and have been met with courtesy and respect every time.  They are a vital component of our community that should not be underestimated or undervalued.

Secondly, to pinch these employees for asking for a 10% raise over a period of 20% inflation should be considered crazy if not criminal.  They are asking for a miniscule piece of the corporate pie.  Last time they received a 50% raise from $14-21 dollars an hour, after months of negotiations, and the following week Vail raised all employees’ wages to at least $20 an hour, keeping the Patrol at the bottom of the food chain.  This was a slap in the face and an obvious sign of disrespect.  Respect is  as important as recognition and remuneration.  These are highly skilled specialists who give their heart and soul, backs, hips and knees to their profession and are treated like dishwashers.

Lastly, Vail claims that there are  3,000 'qualified' applicants for 300 Patrol positions because this is a well-respected and fun occupation that provides self-satisfaction and lifestyle benefits for just half of the year.  I’m sure there would be more than 3,000 applicants for the $6.5 million CEO job or any of the well-respected positions around Vail’s management table that include perks and fun  lifestyle benefits but that hardly preclude them from receiving a living wage!  

We don’t blame the local representatives of the company for they know the value of the Patrol’s expertise.  This is an obviously ploy by Corporate to prevent the precedence of paying a living wage to essential employees.  This should be an opportunity for Vail to reward excellence and send a message to the community that they are valued and not just another widget or cog in the corporate machine.   This is, again, Vail giving us a number and taking away our name.  Shameful, disrespectful and regrettable. 

Matt Lindon

Snyderville

 

Happy New Year

            My fan club has unanimously suggested that I stop being such a curmudgeon.  Both said I should drop all the doom and gloom and be more positive about the world. I have been very happy lately.  Gummy happy, without the gummy.  I have relished the little and big things, like the elk and eagles in the backyard, as well as where I live and who I live there with.  So, to be more optimistic I have made a resolution to see the world through rose-colored glasses again and look for the silver lining.  It can’t be all bad.  The glass is at least half full.    Here are five things to look forward to in the new year. 

Short of WW III or a Greater Depression this Trump thing could be very entertaining with crazy people like RFK and Elon Musk and ideas like deporting our work force or deconstructing the government and the economy.  There is a random and reactive component to all this that must be fun at some level.  I would like to think they are just crazy, and not evil, and crazy can be funny if they are not going crazy on you.  Maybe they can fix Daylight Savings Time, so we get extra light at night and in the morning.  We won’t have viruses or vaccines or worms any more, in our bodies or our brains.  Perhaps they will scare or outspend the world into tearing walls down like Regan did.  Maybe they will trim the fat and balance the budget, by sacrificing the middle class, like Clinton did.  Musk can take over NASA, Bezos take over the Post Office and Zuckerberg take over education and save us all some money.  They could privatize the National Weather Service, so we only get the weather that we want and solve climate change, hurricanes and fire problems.  Housing could mean that all trophy homes have separate servant quarters for all their workers, solving unemployment too.  Or we could privatize Interstates with tolls, solving all the traffic problems.  They could divvy up all the public land in the USA and we would all get 6 acres.  The rich still get Yosemite and Yellowstone.  We could get rid of the IRS if we all agreed to just pay our share of the budget, about $10,000 each or 17% of all income.  We could join up with Putin and China and have one big happy world family with peace and prosperity. No armies, no human right rebellions, no race riots, and no religions too.

The great thing about living in the USA is the government puts half of our expenses on their credit card.  The great thing about living in Park City is that people with second home McMansions pay twice the taxes and most of our bills.  It’s mostly OPM – Other People’s Money, that we are living the high life with.  Which is nice.  I am looking forward to Park City 5.0 with a new Main Street, Snow Park, Mayflower, Canyons, Dakota and Arts Center.  Everyone is going for the Olympic gold with gusto, the golden ring on the merry-go-round, the golden egg laid by the golden goose.  That’s a lot of gold.  There should be gondolas going all over, from Kimball Junction to the Kimball Art Center, from the Pendry to Peak 9990 and from Main Street to Snow Park and Silver Lake and Jupiter Peak.  Cars and buses will go away, and the county will hire personal E-drones to fly us around in three dimensions.  Trophy homes will have servant quarters (see above).  Main street will have no stores, only Disney Land rides.  A snow globe will be installed over the city, and snowmaking will be everywhere.  Utah powder will not be snow or cocaine, but cold hard crypto-currency.  Let’s just hope the people making all of it will decide to make this their home and not take the money and run.  Share the wealth, build the community and make it home.  It could happen.

With less supply and more demand, water will be the hot commodity, priced for what it is worth.  It will then be too expensive to grow rice and cotton in the desert or fruits and nuts in the central valley or alfalfa and hay in the mountains.  They can do that in Japan and Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Texas respectively, where It rains.  Then we will have enough water to refill the Great Salt Lake and for the Colorado River to resupply Lakes Powell and Mead, while having enough water left over for poor western white people and the Native Americans.  Farmers will be bought out and buy a motor home to move to Florida or Arizona.  Hobby Ranches and Dry Farmed Estates will proliferate, and golf courses and pickle ball courts will dominate.  Solar and wind powered dehumidifiers will supply drinking water, and the middle class will take over once again.  There will be red states, blue states and green states that look like Greta’s own backyard.

We will find great reserves of natural hydrogen or fire up the old Nuke plants so that we will have unlimited energy and never have to burn anything again.  Wind turbines and solar panels will be on everyone’s house and the grid connects us all in a many-to-many configuration.  The atmosphere will recover faster than we thought, and the temperatures will ameliorate exponentially with tipping and inflection points in the right direction.  Mother earth will welcome us back like the Prodigal Son.

Finally, with less struggles, we will see the things we have in common and not the things that divide us.  Race and sex will no longer matter, nor will nationality or political preference.  Free speech will be rampant, and guns will be reinstated with light sabers that glow with gold of sunshine.  Truth, honor and civility will make a big comeback, and our representatives will be selected from the best and the brightest.  Everyone will be paid a living wage for their individual contributions to society, and no one will be hungry or cold or compromise their pursuit of happiness.  Imagine. 

 

Matthew Lindon, P.E.

Snyderville, 2025

Waterandwhatever.com

Pooping in the Perrier

 

I may be easily amused but I think we should take this time of year to be thankful for plumbing.  I’m continually amazed that we can turn on our tap and drink fresh clean water.  Hot and cold, you can’t do that in most of the world.  Treated surface or pure ground water, it’s amazing that we poop in the Perrier fresh, local spring water, and It all goes somewhere, by gravity, to be cleaned magically and put back in the river.  Or that the sun evaporites salty sea water into perfectly clean freshwater clouds that float over our mountains and drop their load as rain and snow that we can use on its gravity driven run to the sea.  This old Hydrological Cycle has served us well for eons for all our use.  Eighty percent of all precipitation, 17 trillion gallons a year, goes to natural vegetation. 16 percent to agriculture, mostly for animal feed for meat.  3 percent goes to lawns and golf courses.  A half percent goes to our houses and % 0.1 is actually consumed by our bodies.  So there is a lot of water out there and it really matters how we use it.  If we really wanted to save water, eating less meat would be a good place to star for the best bang for the buck.

It’s Amazing that someone can keep track of all that water and divvy it out to all of us to use for beneficial use and the public welfare, for free.  We use a system developed by the California miners and perfected by the Mormons, to set priorities:’ first in line first in right’ and ‘use it or lose it’.  The actual commodity of water doesn’t cost anything, only its delivery.  And it’s amazing how little we pay for water when it is our second most precious, life-giving compound, behind air.  You can live for 5 minutes without air and 5 days without water, but we pay a lot more for gas, coffee and beer than clean air and clean water. ‘Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting’, said Mark Twain. 

I was skiing glaciers in Alaska above Glacier Bay one time and our plane could not land to take us home due to the weather.  We had food and tea, whiskey and warm tents but we were running out of gas for the stove.  No stove meant no snow melting and hard times for us.  That trip highlighted the connection of energy and water.  You make energy with water at dams, and you use energy to make water from the sea by reverse osmosis.   Park City recently built a 100-million-dollar water treatment plant to get Heavy Metals out of mine water (like Led Zeplin and Metallica.).   So the new Hydrologic Cycle is the interrelation between water, energy, money, grass, food, people.  ‘You know the worth of a glass of water when the well goes dry’, said Ben Franklin.

My wife Tracey and I spend some time each year on the Central California Coast in a few small beach towns that don’t have any extra water and don’t want any.  Therefore, there is only very controlled growth and high property prices due to small supply.  In the 80s we thought we could limit growth in Park City that way, but we had money and bought other people’s water, lots of it.  Water flows towards money.

So here we are in sunny Park City, still dependent on an economy that relies heavily on snow.   But there is less and less supply of snow and water and more and more demand for it.  As things get warmer, less snow can be made and more snow comes as rain.  Scientists predict that we could be out of snow by 2050 as we enter a rain-based hydrology.  Then consider that we are using so much more water and getting so much less rain and snow that the Great Salt Lake is drying up along with the Colorado River, Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Conservation can help decrease demand while addressing climate change can help with increasing supply but our free/cheap water is not going to help us intensify our efforts. 

Subsidizing our water use or burying costs in property tax bills will not help us focus on our consumption, conservation or climate. The State and the Feds are paying people now not to use their agricultural water to solve the shortages of the Great Salt Lake and Colorado River.  Most of the unappropriated free water in the west is long-gone and water is now something to buy and sell.  Now water has a price as well as a worth and a value.  It is becoming a commodity, no longer free, going to those who can afford it.

What are we to do?  Ideally, we can conserve and concentrate on water use efficiency and priorities to reduce demand without sacrificing the public health and welfare.  We can stop burning stuff and address climate change for the long term supply issues. We can listen to scientists and engineers on how this can happen and elect people that will strive to fix it and adapt resiliently.  We can pay the true unsubsidized price and worth of water, and then we will know its value.  We can appreciate the magic and luxury of our water resources and stop squandering them.  We can stop pooping in the Perrier, just because we can. 

 

Call Things by Their Real Name – Be What You Are.

 

When Elder Parley Pratt came up and over his namesake canyon toll-road in the late 1840’s, he named the giant meadow he found – Parley’s Park.  A ‘Park’ was a mountain man term for a high mountain meadow, like Park Meadows, Winter Park or South Park, and not a place to play, live or put your car. 

“We don’t get up ta ‘Park’ too much anymore” said the Summit County ranchers years ago, “too many Mc Mansions and rich hippies”. The old timers called this place ‘Park’, like we call it Heber, and dropped the City part.  Deer Valley’s Snow Park was called Frog Valley before it was drained for lakes, lodges and Parking lots.  That ‘Park’ was the place with the meadows, streams and wetlands.  The city, mines and ski resorts would come later.  This place would grow and change but the name would remain the same.  Park City, paradise paved and a place where winter is now shorter than summer used to be, Can we let it become No-Snow Park or No-Park City?

Personally, when I was small, they called me Ginty, a name my Irish nanny gave me.  When I was in grammar school, they called me Little Lindon following in my big brothers’ footsteps.  In High School I was the philosopher Lindonian and in College I added Rex as the king of Lindonian, but you don’t get to pick your own nick names.  When I got out of school I was called an Engineer on my business card, even though I didn’t know squat.  I was a very Civil Engineer building ski resorts where the slopes face north, and the condos face south.  Then I was called a Dam Inspector, but that sounded too pedantic.  

Getting more involved in the dam design business I called myself a Dam Safety Engineer.  In the winters. I got more involved with weather modeling and called myself a Hydro-Meteorological Engineer even though I couldn’t say it, let alone spell it. Then I became an Assistant State Engineer, of what I wasn’t sure, but it was a nice Title. Finally, focusing on water and admitting that’s what I liked and was good at, I just called myself simply a Hydrologist and owned it. 

It took me a long time to figure out what I was and what I wanted to be, gaining wisdom by experience, no just osmosis.  People and places make us what we are.  You are what you read.  You ‘are’ your soul, and you just ‘have’ your body for a short while.  We become what we are, deliberately and accidentally, but admitting what that is can be the hardest part.  We’ve heard of ‘be where you are’ to be present, or ‘be who you are’ to be self-accepting, and finally ‘be what you are’ to admit to what you have become.  Decide what to be and go be it.

Historically we obscure  what we do with names and titles downplaying what we really are.  Remember they started calling Garbage Men, Sanitation Engineers.  Killer air quality is called fog or smog, haze or PM10 by fake weather readers.  Climate change is called natural chaos by big oil to help deny, diffuse, delay, deflect or diminish it.   Sweatshop delivery warehouses are idealistically called Dream Fulfillment Centers, and your eventual last bed is prosaically called Hospice Care. 

Now instead of being a pedophile, they can call you a Congressman and Cabinet Member or even President if you are a sex offender. It is even more essential during these trying times to call things by their real name. Titles, names and respect are earned and not just bestowed.  You are what you do, not what you say you will do.  We shouldn’t call a narcissistic huckster a King.  You are what you do, not what you say you will do.  WOKE actions are scoffed at but it is still essential to call these designations what that are: civility, kindness, politeness and inclusiveness. 

It doesn’t matter if you are a Vegetarian, Transsexual, Republican or a Buddhist, what matters is that we are more honest and self-accepting of what we really are, and that we call things by their real name.  I’m a Hydrologist, smog is pollution, climate is changing, and our con-man is a clown.  A Park is a beautiful mountain meadow and not a Disney Land destination, cash register megalopolis.  Let’s realize what we are and where we come from and try to incentivize what we realize.  Be what you are.

Inconvenient Science, Politics, Economics and Time

 

It’s been a busy few weeks with an assassination attempt, an abdication, a national election victory of Crazy over Kumbaya, the collapse of the New York Yankees, huge hurricanes worldwide, a comet too close for comfort and Daylight Savings TIME.  Not only are the changes a surprise, but it’s the change in the changes that are unpredictable, the acceleration of change, with respect to TIME.  Where is the comfort in all of this, the convenience of truth and TIME.  

 

Science, engineering and hydrology are under attack these days with conspiracy theories and climate deniers because some of the mad men at the top are not very good at science or don’t believe in it.  Science is not a matter of faith but a matter of fact and is not open to debate.  Science is run by the unequivocal rules and laws of the universe that make the legal and political system seem whimsical and capricious.  Science is our best explanation of how things really work, at this point in TIME.   

I’m a water scientist, a civil engineer, a hydrologist, dam it.  I am a hobby economist, part TIME geologist and amateur cosmologist.  It’ who I am and what I do.  I consider it my obligation to share what I know and love with others, in a format that is fun and fathomable.  I believe we need science now more than ever, for us and for our children.  It’s about TIME and that is not a constant in this ever-changing world, but a commodity that cannot be bought or sold, and we are running out of it. 

Objective scientists like Hawking and Feynman say that our biggest issues today are that our population growth is unsustainable for food, water, natural resources and human industry – the basics of our market economy.  The Earth is already over capacity.  Our climate is on a downhill trend that could flip or accelerate and make the earth hotter than Venus (451° F).  Our technology is becoming so advanced that soon computers will be smarter than we are and may take over.  We can’t even turn off our Smart Phones let alone Artificial Intelligence.  The rich and smart guys are trying to find other planets and a way to relocate or TIME travel amongst our 11M dimensional universes.  That’s not a good sign. 

Water is a good, visible metaphor for our natural resources and how we conserve and distribute them or use them up until they are gone.  The Tragedy of the Commons and human nature dictate that we take more than our share, for fear of getting cheated. The devil may take the rest.  We divide and distribute our lakes and rivers perpetually on paper and wonder why there is no wet water remaining.  We pump our groundwater until it is gone and wonder why the aquifers collapse and the ground subsides.  Out of sight out of mind.  We subsidize waste and encourage overuse that does not support the general welfare and the public good.  This is not conservation or communism, but historic and accepted western water law and economics in practice.   Use it or lose it, waste it or taste it.  First in TIME, first in right, first at the bank.

There is our infinite thirst and exponential growth spurring boundless water demand, as opposed to our diminishing supply, exacerbated by climate change and long-term drought. Our answers are technologically bent, resorting to Apps and accounting, metering and monitoring, smoke and mirrors, deeper wells and longer diversions, water banks and bigger dams.  Or we look for other places to steal water from, like the oceans and icebergs, the Moon and Mars, exoplanets and an alternative universe.  The first thing we always look for is water, in the name of life, and in the name of TIME. 

But if something is free, like water and pollution, inner climate and outer space, free TIME or spare change, people will not value it.  Is it ironic to rely on the fair market to conserve water and clean air, save our climate and preserve outer space, or is it our last, best chance?  People don’t do anything without incentives or disincentives, the carrot and the stick, market forces.  So how do we make wasting water economically expensive, clean air truly valuable, climate and outer space the dominion and responsibility of the masses.  Ask a politician, a businessman, or an economist in these crazy TIMES where it is money that changes everything, and change is the only thing that matters.  Just don’t ask a scientist.  You might not like the inconvenient truth or urgent TIMING. 

A Walk in the Park - Kevin Fedarko

    When we last left Kevin Fedarko, he was describing the great Colorado River - Grand Canyon flood of 1983 in his best seller, award winning book “The Emerald Mile”.  With river runner Kenton Grua’s record run and the nervous Bureau of Reclamation putting plywood up in the spillway of the Glen Canyon Dam to save Lake Powell, it was a rollicking ride down the river.  In his latest effort “A Walk in the Park” Kevin takes us, with his friend – photographer Pete McBride, through a more focused, detailed and methodical exploration of the canyon on foot, with backpacks and boots, blood and blisters, heat and hieroglyphics, searing sunshine and epic storms.  (I would have loved to see more of McBride’s photo’s but they are for another book, I assume.)

    The only way to see big country is on foot, where you smell and taste, feel and hear every detail, including the distances and the silence.  The story is a combination of self-flagellation and hubris, as it arcs from the painful lessons of the Tenderfoot to the triumph of will and wisdom of experience, eventually finishing as a mindless march to an existential finish. 

    First let me say that I loved this book.  Some of the best parts are his descriptions of the geology and geomorphology of the canyon, from the multi-layer birthday cake litany of the aged aeolian stratigraphy to the alluvial formation of the fluted slot canyons and tributaries.  Details like the billon year gap in the Great Unconformity layer, to the oldest exposed rocks in the world.  This brings to light the relative newness of the canyon in the big picture of the earth at this location, with multiple mountains and seas, sand dunes and swamps occurring at this place.  There could have been 100 Grand Canyons before our time, maybe even a million, but we can only appreciate this one, this time. 

    Second, let me say that I love this hike but being unprepared does not make you an adventure writer, it makes you a rube.  I have been on extended backpack trips in the Canyons, with Ultra-Hiker John Demkowitz, and I realize the razor sharp risk assessment you make every day for sun, safety and shortcuts, water, direction and distance, calories expended and calories gained.  Kevin’s amateur antics on his first hike did not make me energized or empowered but enervated and exhausted, an accident waiting to happen.   As a hydrologist, I was equally unimpressed with the river descriptions in the “Emerald Mile” but disappointed in the sensationalism and melodrama.  It is great that he can tell these stories to the general public, in a palatable format, but does it have to be so slapdash?    I prefer a good didactic story, well told, without the window dressing and embellishment. 

    Fedarko is a great writer with a zinger on every page, incredible descriptions and metaphors, but does he have to use so many words.  There are only so many ways you can try to describe the Grand Canyon, your effort or misery, ambition and determination, and he tries everyone.  Just tell the story, in 100 pages, and be done with it.  Like his mentor and inspiration, Colin Flecher, “The Man who Walked Through Time,” the book does not have to be a slog that duplicates the hike.  Like his hero Grua’s subsequent through-walk, do it and be quite about it.  Be more, appear less.  Still, besides its pretentiousness, it is a fun and funny story, like a family hike or a fraternity road trip, complete with mishaps and miscalculations, tragedy and triumph and in the end, we do find meaning in the journey, if not the destination, in the coda of comfort and it’s completion.

    His unrivaled description of the Celestial Vault of their three-dimensional desert stargazing, solidifying their insignificance, is a powerful portion of the narrative as is the apparent movement of the Anthropomorphs painted on the rocks nearly 4000 years ago, where the canyon is alive and speaking to them.  In between is the sad story of the Havasupai and Hualapai tribe’s struggle for relevance and recognition with their familiar bargaining for ownership and development of their birthright natural resources.  The rampant Eco-tourism depicted by air traffic in Helicopter Alley and the Volun-tourism expressed by those who want to help the natives is clouded by the hikers self-absorption and importance.  This was an self-absorbed  search for meaning in their narcistic struggle for fulfillment in a brutal, living and moving natural environment that cares not for them, or their quest. 

    Wilderness is where man is just a visitor who leaves, where a tree that falls in the forest makes a noise, weather we are there to hear it or not. It is about exploration and enjoyment, not conquest and accounting for the record books.  The Wild reveals itself to us in its own time, to those who are curious and equipped, resilient and ready.  Despite his caution, Fedarko’s book will spur a new horde of cross-canyon adventurers, seeking out the inner canyons’ myths and legends, records and experiences.  They will flood the area with novice and expert hikers, all taking their little piece of heaven or hell with them.  In some cases, it is better to let the wilderness be.  Some things are better left unsaid.