River : One Man's Journey Down the Colorado, Source to Sea

by Collin Fletcher

Release Date: 05 May, 1998

Edition: Paperback

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Motivating book as one eases out of "youth"

Colin Fletcher was one of my early "guides" into backpacking, and many of his hiking tips still stand up well as I continue to backpack in my 50's.

His trip down the Colorado provides more inspiration for what can be achieved as you get wiser and, oh yes, older, too.

This isn't an "adventure" story in the trite sense, nor a river guide. It's a sharing of a person's thoughts. Fletcher is a different kind of person than most of us, but his musings cause me to think about my own life strategies and outcomes.

-- P.C.

A book for the ourdoor type

This is a good book for those who are genuinely interested in a journey in the wilderness. This is not a book for those who look for thrilling adventures, or those "armchair travelers" who look for commercialized travel books (such as those by Bill Bryson). You can say that the book lacks drama, it is too "plain". To a certain extent I agree with that. As Fletcher says in his book (about the Colorado), it plays "themes and variations". The same can be said about this book, most of the time it flows slowly, but along the way there are reflections, thoughts, observations, etc. It is not as "exciting" as the commercialized writings of Bill Bryson and the like, but you can sense the honesty in Fletcher's writing, that is, he did not take the journey with the goal of writing a book about it, he genuinely wanted to take the journey just for the sake of it.

This is not an Edward Abbey type of book either. Abbey's writing is definitely better. Comparing this book to "Desert Solitaire" is like comparing a amateur's snapshots to Ansel Adams' murals. But, like I said, if you are genuinely an ourdoor and wildness person, especially if you hiked or rafted in the canyon country, you will find much to enjoy in this book.