Five
Quail
Books
NEW BOOKS
Butler, Elias and Tom Myers - GRAND OBSESSION: Harvey Butchart and the Exploration of Grand Canyon.
Puma Press, Arizona, 2007, 8vo., 455pp., many photos, biblio., index.
Grand Obsession tells the story of Harvey Butchart (1907-2002), the legendary Grand Canyoneer who climbed, hiked, floated and bushwhacked 12,000 pioneering miles below the rim during a 42-year obsession with the world-famous gorge.
Here for the first time is Harvey’s life story—his years as a fatherless child in the mountains of China, his struggles in America during the Great Depression, and finally, his all-consuming drive for greatness by exploring one of the West’s last unknown wildernesses. Lace up your boots and follow along as the authors retrace Harvey’s footsteps on dangerous cliff edges while chronicling his thrilling exploits, heart-breaking tragedies, and lasting triumphs. Part biography, part modern-day adventure, Grand Obsession will take you deeper into the soul of this fascinating man—and Grand Canyon—than you have ever been before!
Over 100 photographs and Butchart's own detailed maps round out the 455-page book covering the exploration of Grand Canyon by foot.
(A) Black cloth w/gilt, pict. dustjacket, map endpapers. Limited number of hardbacks available. New. . . . . . . $29.95
(B) Pict. wraps, map endpapers. New. . . . . . $19.95
Eilts, Wanda Morlan - FLOATING HOGANS IN MONUMENT VALLEY – Remembering the First Marina in Navajoland
Vishnu Temple Press, Arizona, 2007, 8vo., paperback, 176pp., 4 pages of color photos.
A memoir of a year spent on the San Juan River. San Juan Marina near Oljato in Monument Valley, Utah, was an isolated place in 1987 when the author and her husband arrived to manage the new marina on the San Juan River arm of Lake Powell. They fell in love with the surroundings and the Navajo people and culture they encountered. In addition to the daily joy and satisfaction of friendship and hard work, the couple dealt with floods and siltation, murder and drug-runners, and graft, greed and corruption.
New. . . . . . . . . . . . $14.95.
Kolb, Ellswoth L. - THROUGH THE GRAND CANYONF ROM WYOMING TO MEXICO. Grand Canyon Association, 2007 reprint, 8vo., paperback, 456pp., 72 photos.
This new edition of one of the earliest accounts of running the Green and Colorado rivers contains the original text and photographs, appearing almost exactly as they did in the first edition of the book. All of the characters and cataracts are here, as the Kolb brothers persevere through multiple mishaps and fickle weather during their remarkable journey. Their story is one of the classic adventure tales of the American West.
New. . . . . . . . . . . $16.95
Luttrell, Jean - JOHN H. RIFFY - The Last Old-time Ranger.
Vishnu Temple Press, Arizona, 2007, 8vo., paperback, 152pp., numerous b/w photos.
A biography of the long-time North Rim Ranger.
When John H. Riffey was assigned to the Tuweep Ranger Station on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in 1942, his main task was to manage the grazing permits of homesteaders in Tuweep Valley who ran livestock in the then National Monument. Occasionally he was called on by the couple of dozen tourists a year looking for the Toroweap Overlook where they could gaze down on Lava Falls, hike up Vulcan’s Throne and enjoy the scenery and peace of a place eighty miles from a paved highway.
By the time he died in 1980, the livestock were no longer allowed in Grand Canyon National Park, Riffey’s neighbors, the homesteaders, had left for greener pastures or were part-time residents, and there might be more than two dozen tourists a day barreling along the dirt road by his ranger station. He was still the only representative of the National Park Service there.
His friends and acquaintances knew a man who watched out for his fellow men as well as protecting the high desert environment. He was always there to help, cajole or haul livestock, machinery and people out of the mud, snow, heat or water. This is his story told by the daughter of a neighboring homesteader who remembers Riffey’s arrival and departure and the decades of friendship and respect in between.
New.. . . . . . . . . . $14.95 Available DECEMBER 2007
McGarry, Susan Hallsten - BRUCE AIKEN'S GRAND CANYON: An Intimate Affair.
Grand Canyon Association, 2007, 4to., hardback, 160pp., illus.
As a child growing up in the concrete canyons of New York City, Bruce Aiken dreamed of someday living at the end of a long dirt road. Little did he know that this road would lead 5½ miles down a narrow, steep trail into the depths of another canyon—the Grand Canyon. Nor could he predict that he would live in this unlikely place for over thirty years.
In a remote side canyon along a stream that ultimately flows into the Colorado River, Bruce and his wife Mary raised three children while he tended Grand Canyon National Park’s precious water supply at Roaring Springs . . . and painted. Out of this intimate relationship between the artist and his muse came a body of work unparalleled in the annals of Grand Canyon landscape painters."
New. . . . . . . . . . . . $55.00
Simmons, Virginia McConnell - DRIFTING WEST - The Calamities of James White and Charles Baker.
University Press of Colorado, 2007, 8vo., tan cloth, pict. dustjacket, 210pp., b/w photos, bilio., index.
During westward expansion in the nineteenth century, thousands of anonymous individuals drifted into the American West in search of opportunities in trapping and trading, prospecting and mining, military service, railroad construction, freighting, agriculture, town-building, and adventure. Few of these emigrants achieved sufficient notoriety for their names to be recalled today. Two exceptions are James White, who is said to have accidentally traversed the Grand Canyon on a makeshift raft two years prior to the first expedition of John Wesley Powell, and his erstwhile companion Charles Baker, who played a prominent role in prospecting in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains in the 1860s.
The exploits of these two drifters and the ongoing debate about the veracity of the Grand Canyon story and other legendary adventures provide the basis for lively narrative history in Virginia McConnell Simmons’s Drifting West.
Simmons’s account, based on extensive research—from archival study to rafting and backpacking expeditions in the Grand Canyon—reveals the characters, fortunes, and misfortunes of these two adventurous men, examines the debate about White’s alleged traverse of the Grand Canyon in relation to Powell’s career, and offers a compelling portrait of the West as seen through the experiences of the two drifters. Maps, photographs, sketches, and historical data about the places White and Baker passed through enrich the text.
New. . . . . . . . . . . $29.95
Swanson, Frederick H. - DAVE RUST - A Life in the Canyons.
University of Utah Press, 2007, 8vo., hardback, 400pp. Foreword by Michael F. Anderson.
In the fall of 1897, Dave Rust, a young placer miner from Caineville, Utah, looked up from his sluice box on the Colorado River and gazed at the brilliant sandstone cliffs of Glen Canyon. He wasn’t finding much gold, but he knew that this landscape abounded in scenic beauty and that people would pay good money to see it. A quarter century later, he would fulfill his dream of taking adventurous travelers through this stunning canyon in his little canvas-covered canoes. By that time he had amassed a comprehensive knowledge of the geologic wonders of the Colorado Plateau province of Utah and Arizona, and each summer he led month-long pack trips through a mind-boggling variety of cliffs, mesas, mountaintop overlooks, and hidden desert canyons.
David D. Rust (1874–1963) grew up in south-central Utah, and as a young man he worked a variety of jobs. But the canyon country always called to him, and for more than three decades he was the premier backcountry outfitter and guide in southern Utah. He felt that travel was more than a pastime—it was a chance to enrich one’s mind, and he showed the way to achieve a deep understanding of the Colorado Plateau’s fabulous landforms.
“This is a very significant work, for the reason that Rust was a very significant figure in Colorado River and Plateau history, yet nothing has ever appeared in print about him.” — Roy Webb, University of Utah.
New.. . . . . . . . . . . $29.95
Thybony, Scott - THE INCREDIBLE GRAND CANYON: Cliffhangers and Curiosities from America's Greatest Canyon.
Grand Canyon Association, 2007, 8vo., paperback, 120pp., 150 illus.
For decades, Scott Thybony has traversed the American Southwest in search of its history, its people, and its little-known stories. In this volume, Thybony, one of the premier storytellers of our time, has compiled his favorite tales about the Grand Canyon- some quirky, some pure whimsy, many actually true. Filled with legends, romance, cliffhangers, and enduring mysteries, this delightful read will wrinkle your brow, touch your heart, and make you laugh. It's a light take on the hard facts. Grab it and go!
New. . . . . . . . . . . $14.95
Page Posted: November 10, 2007