The Hidden Canyon: A River Journey

Edward Abbey

Harry N. Abrams, Jul 7, 2015 - Travel - 160 pages

One of the great wonders of the natural world, the Grand Canyon has long enticed visitors to gaze down upon its expansive beauty. For others, it is best observed from the river that flows through its majestic walls. In The Hidden Canyon, renowned photographer and river guide John Blaustein and environmental hero and bestselling author Edward Abbey document their epic journey through the canyon from the vantage point of the Colorado River. Abbey's humorous and lyrical journal, accompanied by Blaustein's stunning photography, recalls the excitement and wonder of navigating the alternating calm and churning waters of the Colorado with a group of fellow adventurers in small wooden rowboats known as dories. This revised and updated edition, including dozens of new photographs and an afterword by Kevin Fedarko, captures the grandeur of the canyon and depicts their life-altering journeys through hundreds of miles of breathtaking landscapes, secret gardens, stunning wildlife, and demanding white water.

About the author

Edward Abbey was born January 29, 1927 in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and grew up in nearby Home. After military service in Naples, Italy, from 1945-47, he enrolled in Indiana University of Pennsylvania for a year before traveling to the West. He fell in love with the desert Southwest and eventually attended the University of New Mexico, where he obtained both graduate and post-graduate degrees. Abbey was a Fulbright Fellow from 1951-52. Abbey was an anarchist and a radical environmentalist; these positions are reflected in his writings. His novel Fire on the Mountain won the Western Heritage Award for Best Novel in 1963. Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, considered by many to be his best work, is nonfiction that reflects Abbey's love for the American Southwest and draws on his experiences as a park ranger. Among his best-known works are The Brave Cowboy (1956), The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975), and The Fool's Progress (1988). In 1966 The Brave Cowboy was made into a movie titled Lonely Are the Brave, starring Kirk Douglas. Two collections of essays have been published since his death in 1989: Confessions of a Barbarian in 1994 and The Serpents of Paradise the following year. In 1987, Abbey was offered the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, but he declined. Abbey died in March 1989, near Tucson, Arizona, from complications following surgery. He did not want a traditional burial but rather requested to be buried in the Arizona desert, where he could nourish the earth which had been the subject of so many of his works.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Hidden Canyon: A River Journey
• Author: Edward Abbey
• Photographs by: John Blaustein
• Contributors: Mark Litton, Kevin Fedark
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, 2015
• ISBN: 1937359743, 9781937359744
• Length: 160 pages
• Subjects: Photography / Subjects & Themes / Regional; Travel / Pictorials; Travel / United States / West / Mountain (AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, UT, WY)