Biography
Kevin Fedarko has spent the past twenty years writing about conservation, exploration, and the Grand Canyon. He has been a staff writer at Time, where he worked primarily on the foreign affairs desk, and a senior editor at Outside, where he covered outdoor adventure. His writing has appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times, and Esquire, among other publications. His first book, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon, which won a National Outdoor Book Award and the Reading the West Book Award, was a New York Times bestseller. He lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
From the author of the beloved bestseller The Emerald Mile, a rollicking and poignant account of an epic 750-mile odyssey, on foot, through the heart of America’s most magnificent national park and the grandest wilderness on earth.
Two friends, zero preparation, one dream. A few years after quitting his job to follow an ill-advised dream of becoming a guide on the Colorado River, Kevin Fedarko was approached by his best friend, National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, with a vision as bold as it was harebrained. Together, they would embark on an end-to-end traverse of the Grand Canyon, a journey that, McBride promised, would be “a walk in the park.” Against his better judgment, Fedarko agreed, unaware that the small cluster of experts who had completed the crossing billed it as “the toughest hike in the world.”
The ensuing ordeal, which lasted more than a year, revealed a place that was deeper, richer, and far more complex than anything the two men had imagined—and came within a hair’s breadth of killing them both. But always, there was the great gorge itself: austere and unforgiving but suffused with magic, drenched in wonder, and redeemed by its own transcendent beauty. A singular portrait of a sublime place, A Walk in the Park is a deeply moving plea for the preservation of America’s greatest natural treasure.