A Green River Reader

by Blackstock, Alan

• ISBN13: 9780874808377
• ISBN10: 0874808375
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-11-21
• Publisher: Univ of Utah Pr

Summary

"There is something ominous about a swift river, and something thrilling about a river of any kind."-from Beyond the Hundredth Meridianby Wallace Stegner Beginning above Flaming Gorge Dam in southwestern Wyoming, the Green River traverses the complete variety of terrain on the Colorado Plateau before joining the Colorado River above Cataract Canyon in southeastern Utah. Like its more famous cousin, the Colorado, the Green has captivated, capsized, and cajoled all types of characters with challenges and beauty to match its geologic variety. In A Green River Readereditor Alan Blackstock brings this mysterious, magnificent, thrilling river to the reader with an interpretive guide that will inform both river novices and river veterans. Assembled here is every significant written testament to this "awesome ditch," from Domínguez-Escalante to Kit Carson and John C. Frémont; to contemporary American naturalists and writers including Wallace Stegner, Bernard DeVoto, David Brower, Ann Zwinger, Ellen Melloy, and Edward Abbey. Those with a story to tell-those who trapped the Green's beavers, endured its wild rapids, were humbled by its imposing canyon walls, fought for its beautiful landscapes, or whose "pulse was hurried" by the "lofty chasms, walled in by precipices of red rock"-are collected here. If you're headed down the Green, make sure that your dry bag or ammo can has room for just one more thing, your copy of A Green River Reader.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction	1	(10)
Alan Blackstock
Beginnings: Four Streams in Search of a River	11	(5)
Philip L. Fradkin
The Dominguez-Escalante Journal	16	(6)
Fray Francisco Silvestre Vélez de Escalante
The Explorations of William H. Ashley and Jedediah Smith, 1822-1829	22	(5)
William H. Ashley
Kit Carson's Autobiography	27	(5)
Kit Carson
An 1839 Wagon Train Journal	32	(8)
Thomas J. Farnham
Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains	40	(4)
John C. Frémont
Death Valley in '49	44	(14)
William Lewis Manly
Report of the Exploring Expedition from Santa Fe, New Mexico to the Junction of the Grand and Green Rivers of the Great Colorado of the West	58	(4)
John Strong Newberry
Uintah Not What Was Represented	62	(2)
Deseret News
Green River: The Gateway	64	(7)
Wallace Stegner
The Lost Journal	71	(7)
John Colton Sumner
The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons	78	(14)
John Wesley Powell
George Y. Bradley's Journal	92	(6)
George Y. Bradley
A Canyon Voyage: The Narrative of the Second Powell Expedition	98	(11)
Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
"Queen Ann" of Brown's Park	109	(17)
Ann Bassett Willis
Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico	126	(11)
Ellsworth Kolb
Now We're Safe, Now We're on the River: Bus Hatch's First Green River Voyage	137	(9)
Roy Webb
The Marks of Human Passage	146	(14)
Wallace Stegner
The Dinosaur National Monument	160	(10)
Earl Douglass
Shall We Let Them Ruin Our National Parks?	170	(9)
Bernard De Voto
Dinosaurs, Parks, and Dams	179	(8)
David Brower
The Battle for Echo Park	187	(18)
Russell Martin
The Other "Place No One Knew"	205	(6)
Roy Webb
A Recent Year	211	(10)
Philip L. Fradkin
Echo Park Through Split Mountain	221	(11)
Ann H. Zwinger
Two-Snake Days	232	(14)
Ellen Meloy
Terra Incognita: Into the Maze	246	(13)
Edward Abbey
Suggested Reading	259	(2)
Permissions	261