Nouvelle arrivée
The Emerald Mile
The Sports Plus take
A wooden dory, a 1983 flood, a Grand Canyon record.
In June 1983, record snowmelt pushed the Colorado River so high that engineers feared Glen Canyon Dam could fail. In the middle of the crisis, guide Kenton Grua and two friends launched a restored wooden dory called the Emerald Mile to set the speed record through the Grand Canyon, from Lees Ferry to Lake Mead. Kevin Fedarko, who also wrote A Walk in the Park, weaves their run into the history of the river and the canyon. It won the Reading the West Book Award.
Shelf
How it reads
Moderate
Best for
- River runners and paddlers
- Fans of A Walk in the Park
- Grand Canyon lovers
About this book
- Author
- Kevin Fedarko
- Publisher
- Scribner
- Published
- July 1, 2014
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 448
- ISBN-10
- 1439159866
- ISBN-13
- 978-1439159866
Book description
The true tale of the fastest boat ride ever through the Grand Canyon, atop the legendary Colorado River flood of 1983.
In the spring of 1983, massive flooding along the length of the Colorado River confronted a team of engineers at the Glen Canyon Dam with an unprecedented emergency that might have resulted in the most catastrophic dam failure in history. In the midst of this crisis, the decision to launch a small wooden dory named "The Emerald Mile" at the head of the Grand Canyon, just fifteen miles downstream from the Glen Canyon Dam, seemed not just odd, but downright suicidal.
The Emerald Mile, at one time slated to be destroyed, was rescued and brought back to life by Kenton Grua, the man at the oars, who intended to use this flood as a kind of hydraulic slingshot. The goal was to set the all-time record for the fastest boat ever propelled - by oar, by motor, or by the grace of God himself - through the heart of the Grand Canyon atop the Colorado River, from Lee's Ferry to Lake Mead. Did he survive? Just barely.
About the author
Kevin Fedarko has spent more than twenty years writing about conservation, exploration and the Grand Canyon, as a staff writer at Time, a senior editor at Outside, and for National Geographic, The New York Times and Esquire. He is also the author of A Walk in the Park, which won the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.
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