The best way I know to see The Grand Canyon is not on a cushy raft trip but on foot, where you smell and taste, feel and hear every detail, including the distances and the silence. With backpacks and boots, blood and blisters, heat and hieroglyphics, searing sunshine and epic storms, “A Walk in the Park,” is a combination of self-flagellation and hubris. It arcs from the painful lessons of the Tenderfoot to the triumph of will, wisdom and experience, eventually ending as a mind-numbing march to an existential finish.
Kevin Fedarko is a great writer with a zinger on every page, incredible descriptions and metaphors. Some of the best parts of this book are Fedarko’s litany of the geology and stratigraphy of the Grand Canyon, From the billon year gap in the Great Unconformity layer, to the oldest exposed rocks in the world, his unrivaled explanation of their stargazing of the Celestial Vault, solidifying their three-dimensional insignificance, is a powerful portion of the narrative. So is the apparent movement of the Anthropomorphs painted on the rocks nearly 4000 years ago, where the canyon is alive and speaking to them. In between is the sad story of the local Havasupai tribe’s struggle for relevance and the rampant Eco-tourism depicted by air traffic in Helicopter Alley.
These epic hiking trips were Fedarko’s personal search for meaning and the familiar struggle for fulfillment in a brutal, living and moving, natural environment that cares not for him, or his quest. Despite its hyperbole this is a fun and funny story, like an endless family hike or a farcical fraternity road trip, complete with mishaps and miscalculations, tragedy and triumph. In the end, he does find meaning in the journey, if not the destination, in the coda of its completion.
Wild country reveals itself to us in its own time, to those who are curious, patient, resilient and well prepared. Despite his cautions, Fedarko’s “A Walk in the Park” might spur a new horde of cross-canyon adventurers, seeking out the inner chasms’ myths and legends, records and experiences. Will they flood the Park with novice and expert hikers alike, all taking with them their little piece of heaven or hell? If so, could they leave a little bit of soul for the rest of us, who might be content to just read the book, look into the void, or simply to know that it is there.
Kevin Fedarko’s “A Walk in the Park” is available at our local libraries.
