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.
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