A walk in the park : the true story of a spectacular misadventure in the Grand Canyon / Kevin Fedarko.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Fedarko, Kevin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Grand Canyon National Park (Ariz.)--Description and travel.

Grand Canyon National Park (Ariz.).

Colorado River (Colo.-Mexico)--Description and travel.

Colorado River (Colo.-Mexico).

Fedarko, Kevin--Travel--Arizona--Grand Canyon National Park.

Fedarko, Kevin.

McBride, Peter (Photographer)--Travel--Arizona--Grand Canyon National Park.

McBride, Peter.

Genre:

Travel writing.

Physical Description:

xxi, 488 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 24 cm

Edition:

First Scribner hardcover edition.

Other Title:

True story of a spectacular misadventure in the Grand Canyon

Place of Publication:

New York : Scribner, 2024.

Summary:

"From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the epic adventure tale The Emerald Mile comes the most dramatic and deeply moving account ever of walking the Grand Canyon, a highly dangerous, life-changing 750-mile trek. The Grand Canyon is an American treasure, visited by more than 6 million people a year, many of whom are rendered speechless by its vast beauty, mystery, and complexity. Now, in A Walk in the Park, author Kevin Fedarko chronicles his year-long effort to find a 750-mile path along the length of the Grand Canyon, through a vertical wilderness suspended between the caprock along the rims of the abyss and the Colorado River, which flows along its bottom. Consisting of countless cliffs and steep drops, plus immense stretches with almost no access to water, and the fact that not a single trail links its eastern doorway to its western terminus, this jewel of national parks is so challenging that when Fedarko departed fewer people had completed the journey in one single hike than had walked on the moon. The intensity of the effort required him to break his trip into several legs, each of which held staggering dangers and unexpected discoveries. Accompanying Fedarko through this sublime yet perilous terrain is the award-winning photographer Peter McBride, who captures the stunning landscape in breathtaking photos. Together, they encounter long-lost Native American ruins, the remains of Old West prospectors' camps, present day tribal activists, and signs that commercial tourism is impinging on the park's remote wildness. An epic adventure, action-packed survival tale, and a deep spiritual journey, A Walk in the Park gives us an unprecedented glimpse of the crown jewel of America's National Parks: an iconic landscape framed by ancient rock whose contours are recognized by all, but whose secrets and treasures are known to almost no one, and whose topography encompasses some of the harshest, least explored, most awe-inspiring terrain in the world"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Wild Country

The Witchery of Whitewater

You Can't Fix Stupid

The Shakedown

Rebooting

The Sudden Poetry of Springs

In the House of Tumbled Stones

Beneath the Ramparts of Time

Boneland and Bedrock

Lost and Found.

Prologue

Part I : Wild Country

Chapter 1 : Into the Abyss

Chapter 2 : The Man Who Walked Through Time

Chapter 3 : Hell with the Lid Off

Part II : The Witchery of Whitewater

Chapter 4 : The 'Jackass' Chronicles

Chapter 5 : The Emerald Cannonball

Chapter 6 : "Kind of a Crazy Idea"

Chapter 7 : The Real Deal

Part III : You Can't Fix Stupid

Chapter 8 : Fricking 'Grand'

Chapter 9 : A Shortcut

Chapter 10 : Who 'Are' These Clowns?

Chapter 11 : Happy Trails

Part IV : The Shakedown

Chapter 12 : Dirty Business

Chapter 13 : The Godfather of Grand Canyon Hiking

Chapter 14 : Rock Bottom

Chapter 15 : Snakebit

Part V : Rebooting

Chapter 16 : Acts of Contrition

Chapter 17 : Back Again, Wiser?

Chapter 18 : The Greater Unknown

Chapter 19 : Where Water Comes Together

Part VI : The Sudden Poetry of Springs

Chapter 20 : The Return of the Hiking King

Chapter 21 : Gems

Chapter 22 : The Woman in the White Deerskin Dress

Part VII : In the House of Tumbled Stones

Chapter 23 : The Great Thumb

Chapter 24 : The Storm

Chapter 25 : Beneath the Eyes of the Owl

Chapter 26 : 'Casa de Piatra'

Part VIII : Beneath the Ramparts of Time

Chapter 27 : The Godscape

Chapter 28 : Drenched in Wonder

Chapter 29 : Olo

Chapter 30 : In Sinyella's Shadow

Chapter 31 : The People of the Blue-Green Water

Part IX : Boneland and Bedrock

Chapter 32 : All In

Chapter 33 : Ghosts of a Former World

Chapter 34 : Smelling the Barn

Chapter 35 : Badlands

Chapter 36 : Rock Bottom, Again

Part X : Lost and Found

Chapter 37 : Hard Days Ahead

Chapter 38 : "The Combat Zone"

Chapter 39 : Evensong

Chapter 40 : Unfinished Business

Chapter 41 : Pilgrims All

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Burt fund bookplate.

Other Format:

Online version: Fedarko, Kevin Walk in the park

ISBN:

9781501183058

1501183052

OCLC:

1417661994