This is an adventure book, but instead of going up, they go down, and across.
I've been to the Grand Canyon twice. It's amazingly beautiful, but what I felt most was fear, of falling off the edge. You're right there, a stumble and you're gone. And you're gonna die. Happens on a regular basis. Did you read about the gymnast who just fell off a mountain while shooting a selfie?
"Tragedy as star gymnast, 23, plunges 260ft down mountain to her death 'while taking a selfie' during a sightseeing visit to German 'Sleeping Beauty' castle": t.ly/lTREs
Yes, that's a link to the "Daily Mail," but don't let that turn you off, the story was everywhere.
As are the stories of people being killed elsewhere while taking selfies. Frequently by stepping outside the guardrail.
And then there was that woman who slipped to her death climbing down Half Dome in Yosemite.
People are convinced they're immune, and that if something does happen someone is responsible, and they will be held liable and have to pay.
This is patently untrue. Mother Nature is a cruel mistress. Even if you've got a lot of experience in the wilderness.
So Kevin Fedarko has a lot of experience in the Grand Canyon, but down below, on the river.
Fedarko, an Ivy League graduate, has dedicated his entire life to the outdoors, and writing about it. Living on the edge of poverty to pursue his dream.
This was more of a thing in the sixties and seventies. But even then it was not easy to make ends meet. Or, if you could, one disaster, a problem with your health, your car, would push you over the edge. But in today's cutthroat world of income inequality, people want a safety net, a guarantee that they won't fall to the bottom. Which is why so many breakthroughs are made by those outside the educational system, because those who pay their dues studying want a dividend for that work.
Now Fedarko has got this photographer buddy who is always proposing these trips that are not completely thought through, and he tells Fedarko they should walk the Grand Canyon.
Easier said than done. As a matter of fact, very few people have done it at all! The Grand Canyon itself has not been fully explored.
Man, we've gone to the moon, and we still don't know what is happening here on earth?
Everywhere you go you're not the first. But in the Grand Canyon?
Now it turns out there are people who've dedicated their lives to the canyon, whose names you've never heard of and probably never will. Some have great jobs, traditional jobs, are experts in their field, but they're drawn to the canyon, they hike it every chance they've got, they plot it... Once again, today everybody does it for the money and the fame. Just to do it because you love it, that's rare.
And you may not have been to the southwest, to the desert, it's very forbidding. Scary. And it's one thing to stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon and look, but the thought of going down in it...
That's another way people regularly die. They start hiking down and the heat and the lack of water ultimately gets to them. They set out in their sneakers, on a lark, and they come home in a body bag.
There are so many ways to die on the established routes, but hiking the entire length of the canyon, that's asking for it.
Now Fedarko is a bit too self-deprecating for my taste. But that doesn't undercut the basic narrative. You can feel the heat, the risk is self-evident. This is a dangerous trip and he and his partner are often not up to it.
Actually, canyon experts insist on coming along for parts of the trip, for fear that the two will buy it. As do expert canyoneers all the time.
Yes, your life is at risk. And the elements can turn on you instantly. Like those deaths in flash floods in the west just this past week.
Fedarko is not the usual adventure writer. Straightforward in simple language. His is a more literary style, which makes the book a bit more dense and harder to read. It is not the breeze of Krakauer.
Not that I want to denigrate Krakauer, I love his immediate style. But Krakauer always leavens his stories with his personal experience. He adds life to the adventure. Fedarko speaks of his ill father, but most of the time is spent down in the canyon. And that can get old, but...
It's no walk in the park. But it is. There is no safety net, you may not be able to be rescued. And slipping and falling to your death is a constant possibility. The earth might move, having nothing to do with what you did. That's nature.
Now "A Walk in the Park" got great reviews, and it was recently on the L.A. "Times" best-seller list. But reading it is...no walk in the park. You have to dedicate yourself to it. At times it's relentless. Dry. But when you're done...
It's just like completing the hike itself. You're satisfied, you feel you've done something special, and it's nearly impossible to forget.
Once again, it's hot and dreary and you're out there alone and there's no established trail.
You know if you want to read this book.
But, once again, it requires dedication. But there are rewards.
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