Rocketing Through the Grand Canyon

Travel Blog  •  Eva Holland  •  04.23.13 | 7:58 AM ET

The May issue of Outside includes a gripping story, Rocketing Into the Great Unknown, about a 1983 speed run through the Grand Canyon. The river was in full flood—there was so much water, the Glen Canyon dam was at risk—when three experienced river guides decided to attempt the run in a wooden dory. The resulting story, an excerpt from Kevin Fedarko’s forthcoming book “The Emerald Mile,” is a page turner. Here’s a taste:

And now he waited for it. At the top of every rapid, a moment comes when the topography of the whitewater reveals itself. This happens in an instant; there is no preamble. One second you’re approaching a flat horizon line, the next, what lies beyond is visible in all its fury. That final flash comes like a slap in the face, the sting amplified by the knowledge that the choices you’ve made—your angle, your timing, your speed—are now irrevocably set.

As Grua approached this point of no return, he processed a few last-second details. A slice of calmer water was sluicing past the right-hand shoreline—he could see that now. But that water was too shallow for a wooden boat, studded with half-submerged boulders and laced with broken tree limbs that stuck out like punji sticks.

“Do you think I should cut right?” Grua shouted over his shoulder, looking for confirmation from Petschek.

“You don’t have a chance of doing it,” Petschek called back. “Keep her straight!”

The men braced as the current seized the hull and slung them toward the biggest mess of whitewater that any Grand Canyon boatman had ever seen.

The issue is packed with adventure narratives. Aside from Fedarko’s Grand Canyon story, there are also dispatches from South Sudan and a long-distance Mongolian horse race, and a look back at the first American ascent of Everest. It’s worth checking out. Meanwhile, we published a story about a mellower journey through the Grand Canyon, Michael Shapiro’s River a Mile Deep, last year.


Eva Holland is co-editor of World Hum. She is a former associate editor at Up Here and Up Here Business magazines, and a contributor to Vela. She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.


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