Down the Great Unknown

by Dolnick, Edward

• ISBN13: 9780060196196
• ISBN10: 006019619X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-10-04
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

On May 24, 1869 a one-armed Civil War veteran named John Wesley Powell and a ragtag band of nine mountain men embarked on the last great quest in the American West. No one had ever explored the fabled Grand Canyon, to adventurers of that era a region almost as mysterious as Atlantis -- and as perilous. The ten men set out down the mighty Colorado River in wooden rowboats. Six survived. Drawing on rarely examined diaries and journals. Down the Great Unknown is the first book to tell the full, true

Author Biography

Edward Doinick is the former chief science writer at the Boston Globe. He has written for the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, and many other publications. He made his first Grand Canyon river trip twenty years ago. He is married and has two children

Table of Contents

The Challenge	1	(8)
The Crew	9	(14)
The Launch	23	(14)
Ashley Falls	37	(16)
Paradise	53	(4)
Disaster	57	(12)
Shiloh	69	(10)
The Hornets' Nest	79	(12)
Hell's Half Mile	91	(14)
Fire	105	(10)
The First Milestone	115	(12)
Hoax	127	(10)
Last Taste of Civilization	137	(10)
Trapped	147	(12)
``Hurra! Hurra! Hurra!''	159	(10)
Outmatched	169	(12)
Flash Flood	181	(12)
To the Taj Mahal	193	(12)
Grand Canyon	205	(10)
Time's Abyss	215	(12)
The Great Unknown	227	(12)
Sockdolager	239	(12)
Fight	251	(8)
Misery	259	(8)
Separation Rapid	267	(8)
Deliverance	275	(4)
The Vanishing	279	(8)
Epilogue	287	(6)
Notes	293	(48)
Bibliography	341	(12)
Acknowledgments	353	(2)
Index	355