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.
