The Rapids and the Roar by Gaylord Staveley (2015-05-04) [Mass Market Paperback] unknown author

Description:

More than forty years before Major John Wesley Powells 1869 descent of the Green and Colorado rivers, mountain men in bullboats had probed the rivers headwaters, and schooner and steamboat captains were probing its mouth. Powells voyage was one of confirmation. It penetrated that Great Unknown called Grand Caon. It connected the upper and lower probes of the river and was the beginning of full-length boat expeditions.

The Rapids and the Roar tells the stories of twenty-one historic river-running endeavors before and after Powell, and the reasons they ran the river or tried. Their reasons many and mixed included ego, ambition, profit, prestige, challenge, compulsion, achievement, career-building, competitive advantage, publicity, official mapping, romance, and, in one instance, descending the river just for the hell of it.

These pioneers blazed a river trail, and a flow of history and knowledge that led to the dawning of recreational river running, followed by mushrooming public demand and the beginning of intensified manipulation of river flows and river visitation.

The book relates how Gaylord's life unexpectedly connected with that historic flow in the 1950s, just when damming of the San Juan, Green, and Colorado rivers had been authorized. The latter chapters relate adventures and challenges encountered before, during, and after the dam, and Gaylord's resolve to grow a small historic enterprise into Canyoneers, a modern river outfitting service, in the face of intensifying river and recreational controls.

Book Details

• Published by Fretwater Press
• 344 pages
• 145 photos and illustrations
• 4 appendices
• Bibliography, Index
• ISBN:
  • Cloth 978-1-892327-16-1.
  • Paper 978-1-892327-15-4
• Price
  • Paperbound $19.95
  • Hardbound $29.95