The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon (84 page)

“I haven’t seen anything that suggested”
: Author interview with J. David Rogers.

“How close did we come to losing Glen”
: Knudson and Vogel, “Aging Dams, Already Under Siege.”

26: The Trial

Details of the events that took place at the US magistrate’s court on the South Rim come from interviews with Martin Litton, John Thomas, and Mike Meade, all three of whom were present for the hearing, and from Meade’s case file and notes.

“I wish to speak”
: Thoreau,
Walking
, 7.

they endlessly recounted what had taken place
: Author interview with Petschek. Also, author interview with Mike Meade, who was on a commercial river trip with Grua immediately following the speed run.

grew indignant and angry
: Author interview with Petschek.

“Enclosed is a citation for your participation”
: US Park Service Violation Notice. Original copy in author’s possession.

Litton got busy and started working the phones
: Author interview with Litton.

one of only two postal addresses
: Sente, “No Fries ’Til Mail,” 10.

a spate of cases involving hang-glider pilots
: Verkamp,
Story of the U.S. Magistrate Court in Northern Arizona
, 11–12.

a band of hippies who were tending
: Ibid.

Case Number 83-2079M was no exception
: Author interview with Meade, who was reading from the original complaint and citation as well as from the Code of Federal Regulations.

by explaining that Grua had violated
: Ibid.

Marks didn’t appear to be the least bit angry
: Author interviews with Litton, Meade, and Thomas.

True, Meade stipulated
: Author interview with Meade.

They knew the answer was no
: Ibid.

Litton gave it his best shot
: There is no transcript of what Litton said. The gist of the speech is reconstructed from interviews with Litton and Meade.

Everyone understood this, including Grua
: Author interview with Meade.

“I do find the defendant guilty as charged”
: Ibid.

McKay began by imposing a $500
: Author interviews with Litton and Meade.

Grua may not ever have bothered
: Author interviews with Litton, Meade, and Petschek.

the idea that one was no longer allowed to do
: Author interviews with John Thomas and Kim Crumbo.

The Park Service pronounced itself vindicated
: Ibid.

Epilogue: The Legend of the
Emerald Mile

“Brave boatmen come, they go”
: Blaustein,
Hidden Canyon
, 115.

The English novelist J. B. Priestley
: This quote comes from Priestley,
Midnight on the Desert.
However, the entire idea, including the manner in which the thought itself is framed and worded, comes from the writer Barry Lopez, to whom I am wholly indebted for having both conceived of it in the first place and then expressed it far more eloquently than I could have. The passage can be found on page 175 of Lopez’s marvelous book
Crossing Open Ground.

Four years after the speed run
: Details of Grua’s various projects after the speed run come from author interviews with Litton, Petschek, and Reynolds, among others. Also see Steiger, “Speed,” 176–77.

Grua’s friends greeted this plan
: Author interview with Petschek.

His memorial service was held
: Ibid.

Wren finally bought a boat
: All details of Reynolds’s life after the speed run come from an author interview with Reynolds that was conducted six weeks before he passed away.

“We hit that wave dead-on in the best”
: Ibid.

“it was just such a huge thing”
: Ibid.

Rudi Petschek was by his side
: Author interview with Petschek.

Petschek too had left the river
: All details of Petschek’s life after the speed run come from author interview and e-mail correspondence with Petschek.

“a perfect storm of luck”
: Ibid.

the still-raging storm of Martin Litton
: All details of Litton’s life after the speed run come from author interviews with Litton.

How can you defend against such things
: Ibid.

“America’s greatest scenic treasure”
: Ibid.

“In the end, the most remarkable properties”
: Ibid.

If you pull into the parking lot
: Description of the
Emerald Mile
at the Grand Canyon Dories boathouse in Flagstaff comes from the author, who worked for the company as a baggage boatman for seven summers.

The thirty-five-page story
: See Steiger, “Speed.”

Books and Articles

Abbey, Edward.
Desert Solitaire.
New York: Touchstone, 1968.

———.
Down the River.
New York: Plume, 1991.

———.
The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West.
New York: Plume, 1991.

———.
The Monkey Wrench Gang.
New York: Harper Perennial, 1975.

Anderson, Michael F.
A Gathering of Grand Canyon Historians: Ideas, Arguments, and First-Person Accounts—Proceedings of the Inaugural Grand Canyon History Symposium, January 2002.
Grand Canyon, AZ: Grand Canyon Association, 2005.

———.
Polishing the Jewel: An Administrative History of Grand Canyon National Park.
Grand Canyon, AZ: Grand Canyon Association, 2000.

Annerino, John.
Canyoneering.
Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1999.

Aronson, Jeffe. “High Water of 1983.”
Boatman’s Quarterly Review
21, no. 1 (Spring 2008).

Baars, Donald L.
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Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000.

Bagley, Mark B.
The G Stands for Guts: A Glider Pilot Remembers WWII.
Ashland, OR: Hellgate, 2008.

Balzar, John. “The Old Man and the River.”
Los Angeles Times
, May 11, 1997.

Bangs, Richard, and Christian Kallen.
Rivergods: Exploring the World’s Great Wild Rivers.
San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1985.

Banks, Leo W., and Craig Childs.
Grand Canyon Stories: Then & Now.
Phoenix: Arizona Highways Books, 1999.

Barcott, Bruce.
The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman’s Fight to Save the World’s Most Beautiful Bird.
New York: Random House, 2008.

Barnes, F. A.
Canyon Country Geology.
Salt Lake City: Wasatch Publishers, 1993.

Barry, John M.
Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Beer, Bill.
We Swam the Grand Canyon: The True Story of a Cheap Vacation That Got a Little out of Hand.
Seattle: Mountaineers, 1988.

Belknap, Buzz, and Loie Belknap Evans.
Belknap’s Waterproof Grand Canyon River Guide.
Evergreen, CO: Westwater Books, 1969.

Berger, Todd R.
It Happened at Grand Canyon: From the Coronado Expedition to the Return of the California Condor, Thirty Episodes That Shaped the History of the Grand Canyon.
Guilford, CT: Twodot, 2007.

———.
Reflections of Grand Canyon Historians: Ideas, Arguments, and First-Person Accounts.
Grand Canyon, AZ: Grand Canyon Association, 2008.

Beus, Stanley S., and Michael Morales, eds.
Grand Canyon Geology.
New York: Museum of Northern Arizona Press, 1990.

Billington, David P., Donald C. Jackson, and Martin V. Melosi.
The History of Large Federal Dams: Planning, Design, and Construction in the Era of Big Dams.
Denver: Bureau of Reclamation, US Department of the Interior, 2005.

Bjornerud, Marcia.
Reading the Rocks: The Autobiography of the Earth.
Cambridge, MA: Westview Press, 2005.

Blakey, Ron, and Wayne Ranney.
Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau.
Grand Canyon, AZ: Grand Canyon Association, 2008.

Blaustein, John, with a journal written by Edward Abbey.
The Hidden Canyon: A River Journey.
New York: Penguin, 1977.

Bode, Richard.
First You Have to Row a Little Boat
. New York: Warner Books, 1993.

Bolger, Philip C.
Boats with an Open Mind.
Camden, ME: International Marine, 1994.

Bowden, Charles.
Blue Desert.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986.

Bradley, Harold. “Testimony in Support of Dinosaur House Subcommittee on Irrigation.” Washington, DC: Distributed by the Sierra Club, document located in Martin Litton personal papers, March 28, 1955.

Brinkley, Douglas.
The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America.
New York: HarperPerennial, 2009.

Brower, David.
Work in Progress.
Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, 1991.

Brower, Kenneth.
The Starship and the Canoe.
New York: Bantam, 1978.

Brune, Bonnie. “Historic River Running.” In
A Gathering of Grand Canyon Historians: Ideas, Arguments, and First-Person Accounts—Proceedings of the Inaugural Grand Canyon History Symposium, January 2002
, compiled and edited by Michael F. Anderson.

Bryson, Bill.
A Short History of Nearly Everything.
New York: Broadway Books, 2003.

Buchanan, Eugene.
Brothers on the Bashkaus: A Siberian Paddling Adventure.
Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 2007.

Burgi, Philip H., Bruce M. Moyes, and Thomas W. Gamble. “Operations of Glen Canyon Dam Spillways—Summer 1983.” Reprinted from
Proceedings of the Conference “Water for Resource Development.”
HY Div., ASCE, Coeur d’Alene, ID, August 14–17, 1984.

Burgi, Philip H., and M. S. Eckley. “Repairs at Glen Canyon Dam.”
Concrete International
9, no. 3 (March 1987), 24–31.

Butler, Elias, and Tom Myers.
Grand Obsession: Harvey Butchart and the Exploration of Grand Canyon.
Flagstaff, AZ: Puma Press, 2007.

Calvin, William H.
The River That Flows Uphill: A Journey from the Big Bang to the Big Brain.
San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1986.

Carothers, Steven W., and Bryan T. Brown.
The Colorado River Through Grand Canyon: Natural History and Human Change.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1991.

Casey, Susan.
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean.
New York: Doubleday, 2010.

Chapelle, Howard I.
American Small Sailing Craft: Their Design, Development, and Construction.
New York: W. W. Norton, 1951.

———.
Boatbuilding: A Complete History of Wooden Boat Construction.
New York: W. W. Norton, 1941.

Childs, Craig.
The Secret Knowledge of Water: Discovering the Essence of the American Desert.
Boston: Little, Brown, 2000.

Clark, Georgie White, and Duane Newcomb.
Georgie Clark.
San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1977.

Coder, Christopher M.
An Introduction to Grand Canyon Prehistory.
Grand Canyon, AZ: Grand Canyon Association, 2000.

Cohen, Michael P.
The History of the Sierra Club, 1892–1970.
San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988.

The Colorado River: A Natural Menace Becomes a National Resource.
Washington, DC: US Department of the Interior, March 1946.

Cooley, M. E., B. N. Aldridge, and R. C. Euler. “Effects of the Catastrophic Flood of December 1966, North Rim Area, Eastern Grand Canyon, Arizona.”
Geological Survey Professional Paper 980.
Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1977.

Conrad, Joseph.
Heart of Darkness.
Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1990.

———.
Lord Jim.
New York: McClure, Phillips, 1899.

Cott, Harris. “Calmer County Keeps Mopping Out; More Storms Keep Coming.”
Los Angeles Times
, March 5, 1983.

Cox, Jack. “Raging River Scuttles Forecasts.”
Denver Post
, July 17, 1983.

Crumbo, Kim.
A River Runner’s Guide to the History of the Grand Canyon.
Foreword by Edward Abbey. Boulder, CO: Johnson Books, 1981.

Cunningham, O. Edward.
Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862.
New York: Savas Beatie, 2007.

Dank, Milton.
The Glider Gang: An Eyewitness History of World War II Glider Combat.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1977.

Dasman, Raymond F.
The Destruction of California.
New York: Collier, 1966.

Davis, Wade.
Grand Canyon: River at Risk.
San Rafael, CA: Earth Aware Editions, 2008.

Devlin, Gerard M.
Silent Wings: The Saga of the U.S. Army and Marine Combat Glider Pilots During World War II.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985.