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313 reviews for:
The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon
Kevin Fedarko
4.34 AVERAGE
313 reviews for:
The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon
Kevin Fedarko
4.34 AVERAGE
Spoiler
Reflections on the transience of human existence in the face of nature.The impact of shared experience between Grua, Petschek, and Wren but also how this did not translate to lifelong relationships for any of them.
The drive to lose oneself in nature, and to return through habit and love to places over time.
The joy in fine tuning practices and tactics (to the point of unproductive obsession).
adventurous
hopeful
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Excellent excellent. Listed to on audio book. Wonderful blend of adventure, engineering, and nature. Who wants to go find a Dory with me?
Phew! What a ride. A wild ride it was!
It was the largest El Nino event on record in the winter of 1983. There was a chain of "super storms" coming from the Pacific Ocean. A massive snow-melt sent runoff racing down the Colorado River toward the Glen Canyon Dam. This Dam is a 710 foot high wall of concrete set in the Grand Canyon.
While the water level was furiously rising on the night of the full moon, three river guides secretly launched a small hand-built wooden boat called a dory named the Emerald Mile into the Colorado river just below the dam's base. These river guides where trying to make the fastest run down the Colorado river. It usually takes weeks to go down the river. They were trying to do it in hours.
The river was already full of wreckage of commercial rafting trips, injured passengers and even one fatality. With the chaos the rangers were conducting the largest helicopter evacuation in the history of the Grand Canyon National Park.
At the start of reading this book I thought I needed to be a rafter to be able to understand this book. You don't! I listened to this on audio but also read some of the book. This was so fascinating. I experienced the 1983 storms in California with the severe flooding. It was wild.
The history of the Grand Canyon was interesting. This book has sent me down many rabbit holes of Dams and why we have these Dams. Are they more harmful??
This book needs to be a movie! Highly recommend this book!
It was the largest El Nino event on record in the winter of 1983. There was a chain of "super storms" coming from the Pacific Ocean. A massive snow-melt sent runoff racing down the Colorado River toward the Glen Canyon Dam. This Dam is a 710 foot high wall of concrete set in the Grand Canyon.
While the water level was furiously rising on the night of the full moon, three river guides secretly launched a small hand-built wooden boat called a dory named the Emerald Mile into the Colorado river just below the dam's base. These river guides where trying to make the fastest run down the Colorado river. It usually takes weeks to go down the river. They were trying to do it in hours.
The river was already full of wreckage of commercial rafting trips, injured passengers and even one fatality. With the chaos the rangers were conducting the largest helicopter evacuation in the history of the Grand Canyon National Park.
At the start of reading this book I thought I needed to be a rafter to be able to understand this book. You don't! I listened to this on audio but also read some of the book. This was so fascinating. I experienced the 1983 storms in California with the severe flooding. It was wild.
The history of the Grand Canyon was interesting. This book has sent me down many rabbit holes of Dams and why we have these Dams. Are they more harmful??
This book needs to be a movie! Highly recommend this book!
Quite the story and well worth reading! The history behind the grand canyon exploration and Colorado river dam projects is one everyone should know. The passion of the river guides and the energy of those wooden oar dories is likely unmatched elsewhere. Nature should be conserved but appreciated, respected but left unharmed by the human imprint - 36:38:29
adventurous
informative
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
This book was a great look at the history of fastest run of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. It was interesting to hear about the lives and stories of the River guides, but it was almost more interesting to learn more about the workings of Glen Canyon dam and how they averted a potential failure. I really liked this book and felt that it moved pretty quickly for a non-fiction.
I must give credit where credit is due: Fedarko has clearly done an impressively extensive amount of research and is an excellent writer. Unfortunately, this book is frontloaded with an overwhelming amount of dense background information and history that it was difficult for me, with merely a passing interest in several of the topics covered, to stay engaged and it became a slog to get through the first half; I resorted to skimming since I was determined to finish. Once the book finally starts to focus on the titular speed run and the associated fateful events of 1983 during the final three parts, however, it becomes quite gripping and very exciting to read.
adventurous
funny
informative
reflective
tense
slow-paced
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
Everything I love in a work of narrative non-fiction: action, natural history, geography and great characters.