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About The Book
From the author of the beloved bestseller The Emerald Mile, a rollicking and poignant account of an epic 750-mile odyssey, on foot, through the heart of America’s most magnificent national park and the grandest wilderness on earth.
Two friends, zero preparation, one dream. A few years after quitting his job to follow an ill-advised dream of becoming a guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his best friend, National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon, a journey that, McBride promised, would be “a walk in the park.” Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed, unaware that the small cluster of experts who had completed the crossing billed it as “the toughest hike in the world.”
The ensuing ordeal, which lasted more than a year, revealed a place that was deeper, richer, and far more complex than anything the two men had imagined—and came within a hair’s breadth of killing them both. They struggled to make their way through a vertical labyrinth of thousand-foot cliffs and crumbling ledges where water is measured out by the teaspoon and every step is fraught with peril—and where, even today, there is still no trail along the length of the country’s best-known and most iconic park.
Along the way, veteran long-distance hikers ushered them into secret pockets, invisible to the millions of tourists gathered on the rim, where only a handful of humans have ever laid eyes. Members of the canyon’s eleven Native American tribes brought them face-to-face with layers of history that forced them to reconsider myths at the center of our national parks—and exposed them to the threats of commercial tourism. Even Fedarko’s dying father, who had first pointed him toward the canyon more than forty years earlier but had never set foot there himself, opened him to a new way of seeing the landscape.
And always, there was the great gorge itself: austere and unforgiving but suffused with magic, drenched in wonder, and redeemed by its own transcendent beauty. A singular portrait of a sublime place, A Walk in the Park is a deeply moving plea for the preservation of America’s greatest natural treasure.
About The Reader
Kevin Fedarko has spent the past twenty years writing about conservation, exploration, and the Grand Canyon. He has been a staff writer at Time, where he worked primarily on the foreign affairs desk, and a senior editor at Outside, where he covered outdoor adventure. His writing has appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times, and Esquire, among other publications. His first book, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon, which won a National Outdoor Book Award and the Reading the West Book Award, was a New York Times bestseller. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Product Details
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio (May 28, 2024)
- Runtime: 14 hours and 40 minutes
- ISBN13: 9781797169583
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Raves and Reviews
"Listeners can sense the excitement, awe, and frustration in the author’s chronicle of his “walk” through the Grand Canyon. Kevin Fedarko does double duty as author and narrator, and his narration adds notes of authenticity to the production. His voice is clear and pleasant, and he changes things up to fit particular passages. For instance, he increases his pace slightly as he recounts navigating the Colorado River in a raft. And he slows it down during poetic descriptions of his surroundings. He gets louder to express experts’ incredulity at his plan to navigate the canyon on foot without years of training. And he grows quieter in describing Native Americans’ spiritual ties to the canyon. The audiobook is part travelogue, part history, part autobiography—and wholly enjoyable."
– AudioFile Magazine
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- Book Cover Image (jpg): A Walk in the Park Unabridged Audio Download 9781797169583
- Author Photo (jpg): Kevin Fedarko ©KDI Photography(0.1 MB)
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