Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #279056 in Books
• Published on: 1995-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 318 pages

From Publishers Weekly
It is no wonder that some of the most beautiful writing comes out of the Southwest. With its stark contrasts of pastel skies and vivid geology, it can be difficult to capture the essence of this region, but a few accomplished writers have been able to do justice to this wondrous place. Hidden beneath the innocuous title, Downcanyon (just another raft trip down the Colorado?), is Zwinger's narrative, one reminiscent of the elegant writing of E.O. Wilson. Part of a team of volunteer naturalists and scientists studying environmental impact along the Colorado River, Zwinger (Run, River, Run) was involved in counting and observing Bald Eagles in the canyon. Returning time after time, she describes the changes of the seasons and man-made additions like a huge dam. She creates an intensely rich experience from the weaving of a spider web, and her recollection of summer in the canyon is a scalding, shimmering sensation. "In summer, passing close to these sepulchral walls is like skirting the flank of a dragon. Rock made of seething, molten magma still pulses heat out more than a millennia later when its flat faces tilt to the sun like solar collectors." Downcanyon is a perfect blend of history, natural history and outdoor writing, nicely embellished by the author's sharp sketches. Readers will find Zwinger's account as educational as any text on the subject and as engrossing as a novel.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Zwinger states in her preface that she has written about "what catches my eye and piques my interest, the delightful details of a rich river world." She has done an excellent job of sharing with her readers "the joys thereof." Over four seasons, Zwinger accomplished several trips on Colorado River as it flows through Grand Canyon, from mile 0 at Lees Ferry to mile 278.5 at the Grand Wash Fault. Her colorful and vivid language and occasional gentle humor, as she details tiny ants, spider webs, ancient Anasazi culture, or enormous basalt cliffs, is outstanding. Zwinger has the ability to involve, teach, and share with her reader. Her own observations are intertwined with descriptions from extensive research, making this work a delightfully guised natural/cultural history lesson of the area. Heartily recommended for public and academic libraries. [This was a winner of a 1995 Western States Book Award.?Ed.]?Nancy Moeckel, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, Ohi.
-?Nancy Moeckel, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, Ohio
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Zwinger loves the Grand Canyon: its sights and sounds, its history, and the flora and fauna unique to that great ragged incision on the western face of North America are her muse. Here she describes the canyon as it moves through each of the seasons. Some of the river trips she participated in were for tourists, others were intended as scientific studies of the fish, the plants, or the geologic construction of the canyon. Zwinger avoids describing her human companions on these trips because, she says, "this . . . book is not about fascinating people but about a fascinating river." Her descriptions of the Anasazi (the prehistoric people of the Colorado), the rogues who explored and tried to exploit the canyon, and even the insects, reptiles, and small mammals are delightfully rendered. Zwinger's impressive credentials as a scientist notwithstanding, she shares her love of the canyon with the heart and soul of a poet and even accompanies her prose with several simple but evocative line drawings. Her researcher's side comes through in the 50 pages of notes and the extensive bibliography. Winner of the Western States Book Award for Creative Nonfiction. George Needham

Customer Reviews

wonderful direct engagement with water
As was written by the copy editor to introduce the foreword by Ms. Zwinger to my recently published book "Deep Immersion: Thoreau's Engagement with Water" (Green Frigate Books): "Few have ever been so 'haunted by waters' - to use Norman Maclean's wonderful phrase - as has naturalist and 'water logged' nature writer Ann Haymond Zwinger." This particlar book, like all of her works, very much offers a deep well for thirsty minds.

Seductive prose, incisive observations from the bottom.
Ann Haymond Zwinger has contributed her scientific expertise to subsidized, multi-week inner-canyon environmental impact expeditions, has run each of the Canyon's rapids countless times (in nearly each month of the year), in every sort of water craft. What her scientific eye takes in, her pen transmutes into its own river of irresistible prose, carrying the reader, willing or not, from one chapter to the next. As a hiker, I expected the vision of a "boat person" to suffer from its constricted horizons. A bottom-up myopia. Instead, we find ourselves soaring with eagles. We climb cliffs, clawing our way through a darkness of thorns and pain. We crawl along brushy beaver tunnels. We ponder the local history and lore...and the primeval past. Our journey evokes visions of thousand foot-high lava dams filling the entire Canyon with water, as well as today's horror of a rapid at Lava Falls. While some of her snippets of local human history are rarely mentioned in other books about the Canyon, Zwinger's forte is in the natural sciences. In that arena, she has no peer among Grand Canyon authors. Since this is not a trail manual, it is not easy to restrict one's reading to a single, specific Canyon location. Rather, the chapters are organized by seasons of the year. No matter. If you start at the beginning, its 220 or so pages of narrative will sweep you into their main current and, well... I'll see you below the rapids.