The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon


Kevin Fedarko - 2013
    In the winter of 1983, the largest El Niño event on record—a chain of “superstorms” that swept in from the Pacific Ocean—battered the entire West. That spring, a massive snowmelt sent runoff racing down the Colorado River toward the Glen Canyon Dam, a 710-foot-high wall of concrete that sat at the head of the most iconic landscape feature in America, the Grand Canyon. As the water clawed toward the parapet of the dam, worried federal officials desperately scrambled to avoid a worst-case scenario: one of the most dramatic dam failures in history. In the midst of this crisis, beneath the light of a full moon, a trio of river guides secretly launched a small, hand-built wooden boat, a dory named the Emerald Mile, into the Colorado just below the dam’s base and rocketed toward the dark chasm downstream, where the torrents of water released by the dam engineers had created a rock-walled maelstrom so powerful it shifted giant boulders and created bizarre hydraulic features never previously seen. The river was already choked with the wreckage of commercial rafting trips: injured passengers clung to the remnants of three-ton motorboats that had been turned upside down and torn to pieces. The chaos had claimed its first fatality, further launches were forbidden, and rangers were conducting the largest helicopter evacuation in the history of Grand Canyon National Park. An insurgent river run under such conditions seemed to border on the suicidal, but Kenton Grua, the captain of that dory, was on an unusual mission: a gesture of defiance unlike anything the river world had ever seen. His aim was to use the flood as a hydraulic slingshot that would hurl him and two companions through 277 miles of some of the most ferocious white water in North America and, if everything went as planned, catapult the Emerald Mile into legend as the fastest boat ever propelled—by oar, by motor, or by the grace of God—through the heart of the Grand Canyon. Grua himself was already something of a mythic figure, a fearless boatman obsessed with the mysteries of the canyon. His quest embraced not only the trials of the speed run itself but also the larger story of his predecessors: the men who had first discovered the canyon and pioneered its exploration, as well as those who waged a landmark battle to prevent it from being hog-tied by a series of massive hydroelectric dams—a conflict that continues to this day. A writer who has worked as a river guide himself and is intimately familiar with the canyon’s many secrets, Kevin Fedarko is the ideal narrator for this American epic. The saga of The Emerald Mile is a thrilling adventure, as well as a magisterial portrait of the hidden kingdom of white water at the bottom of the greatest river canyon on earth. This book announces Fedarko as a major writing talent and at last sets forth the full story of an American legend—the legend of The Emerald Mile.

Undaunted Courage: The Pioneering First Mission to Explore America's Wild Frontier


Stephen E. Ambrose - 1996
    This was a military expedition into hostile territory'. In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a pioneering voyage across the Great Plains and into the Rockies. It was completely uncharted territory; a wild, vast land ruled by the Indians. Charismatic and brave, Lewis was the perfect choice and he experienced the savage North American continent before any other white man. UNDAUNTED COURAGE is the tale of a hero, but it is also a tragedy. Lewis may have received a hero's welcome on his return to Washington in 1806, but his discoveries did not match the president's fantasies of sweeping, fertile plains ripe for the taking. Feeling the expedition had been a failure, Lewis took to drink and piled up debts. Full of colourful characters - Jefferson, the president obsessed with conquering the west; William Clark, the rugged frontiersman; Sacagawea, the Indian girl who accompanied the expedition; Drouillard, the French-Indian hunter - this is one of the great adventure stories of all time and it shot to the top of the US bestseller charts. Drama, suspense, danger and diplomacy combine with romance and personal tragedy making UNDAUNTED COURAGE an outstanding work of scholarship and a thrilling adventure.

Lonely Planet Trekking in the Nepal Himalaya


Bradley Mayhew - 2015
    Tour through the hidden backstreet courtyards and temples of Kathmandu, explore the base of the world's highest mountain and learn everything you need to know to trek through this incredible region; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of the Nepal Himalaya and begin your journey now! Inside Lonely Planet Trekking in the Nepal Himalaya Travel Guide: Colour maps and images throughout Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Cultural insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - customs, history, environment Over 60 maps Covers Kathmandu, Everest Region, Annapurna Region, Langtang, Helambu, Eastern Nepal, Western Nepal and more eBook Features: (Best viewed on tablet devices and smartphones) Downloadable PDF and offline maps prevent roaming and data charges Effortlessly navigate and jump between maps and reviews Add notes to personalise your guidebook experience Seamlessly flip between pages Bookmarks and speedy search capabilities get you to key pages in a flash Embedded links to recommendations' websites Zoom-in maps and images Inbuilt dictionary for quick referencing The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet Trekking in the Nepal Himalaya offers a comprehensive look at all you need to know to have a safe and rewarding trek. Looking for a guide focused on Nepal? Check out our Lonely Planet Nepal guide for a comprehensive look at all the country has to offer. Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet,. About Lonely Planet: Since 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel media company with guidebooks to every destination, an award-winning website, mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travellers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves.

Epic Hikes of the World 1


Alex Crevar - 2018
    From one-day jaunts and urban trails to month-long thru-hikes, cultural rambles and mountain expeditions, each journey shares one defining feature: being truly epic.In this follow-up to Epic Bike Rides and Epic Drives, we share our adventures on the world’s best treks and trails. Epic Hikes is organised by continent, with each route brought to life by a first-person account, beautiful photographs and charming illustrated maps. Additionally, each hike includes trip planning advice on how to get there, where to stay, what to pack and where to eat, as well as recommendations for three similar hikes in other regions of the world.Hikes featured include:Africa the Middle East:Cape Town’s Three Peaks (South Africa) Kilimanjaro (Tanzania) Camp to Camp in South Luangwa National Park (Zambia) Americas:Angel’s Landing, Zion National Park (USA) Skyline Trail, Jasper National Park (Canada) Concepción volcano hike (Nicaragua) Asia:8(more...)0206With stories of 50 incredible hiking routes in 30 countries, from New Zealand to Peru, plus a further 150 suggestions, Lonely Planet's Epic Hikes of the World will inspire a lifetime of adventure on foot. From one-day jaunts and urban trails to month-long thru-hikes, cultural rambles and mountain expeditions, each journey featured is truly epic.0802"As a librarian, I adore beautiful books and this guide is beautiful inside and out."Forbes201808010802"The book is beautifully illustrated and makes a perfect coffee table book for yourself or the aspiring adventurer in your life. It will give you just enough detail to whet your appetite and help you kickstart your next adventure."SoCal Hiker201808010802"Whether it's Cape Town's Three Peaks, Jasper National Park's Skyline Trail or Gubeikou to Jinshanling on the Great Wall, you're sure to be inspired."National Post201808010802"The hiking enthusiasts in your life will love having the all-in-one-place scoop on California's Lost Coast Trail, Boston's Freedom Trail, Italy's Path of the the Gods, and many, many more bucket-list-worthy hiking destinations."Sierra Club201808010802"This book will have you poring over the pages dreaming up your next adventure."Aspen Daily News201808010802"Coffee table books like this are a great way to daydream about exploring places you may not have ever considered. This particular book also has the distinction of having beautiful photography and artwork and the fantastic storytelling you'd expect from a Lonely Planet guide."Modern Hiker201808010802"The latest in their popular Epic series, the travel guide experts lay out 200 of the most awe-inspiring hikes on earth. From the Na Pali coast to the Sacred Valley, these are the hikes that cause jealousy among the outdoorsy social media set. Gift it with a new pair of hiking books for a hint-hint that will turn into a win-win."Peter Greenberg2018080199MY0403069781787014176.jpgLonely Planet01Lonely PlanetIE042018080101WORLD01266mm02206mm0326.5mm081.38kg20250731Grantham Book ServicesAD AE AF AL AM AO AT AX AZ BA BD BE BF BG BH BI BJ BN BT BW BY CC CD CF CG CH CI CM CN CV CX CY CZ DE DJ DK DZ EE EG EH ER ES ET FI FO FR GA GB GE GG GH GI GM GN GQ GR GW HK HR HU ID IE IL IM IN IO IQ IR IS IT JE JO JP KE KG KH KM KP KR KW KZ LA LB LI LK LR LS LT LU LV LY MA MC MD ME MG MK ML MM MN MO MR MT MU MV MW MY MZ NA NE NG NL NO NP OM PH PK PL PS PT QA RE RO RS RU RW SA SC SD SE SG SH SI SJ SK SL SM SN SO SS ST SY SZ TD TG TH TJ TL TM TN TR TW TZ UA UG UZ VA VN YE YT ZA ZM ZW20100124.99GBP

National Geographic Stunning Photographs


Annie Griffiths - 2014
    Shot by National Geographic's most renowned photographers and peppered throughout with inspiring quotations, Stunning Photographs is a vibrant tapestry of images that showcases the medium's ability to reveal extraordinary moments of wit and discovery, harmony and intimacy, energy and joy. Definitive, striking, and always unstaged, the remarkable pictures in this book will appeal to all who want to enjoy the smorgasbord of colors, textures, and sensations that comprise the fabric of everyday life.

Lonely Planet Moscow


Leonid Ragozin - 2000
    Prepare yourself for a distinctively Russian cauldron of artistry and history, nightclubs and vibrant street life. Mara Vorhees, Lonely Planet Writer Our PromiseYou can trust our travel information because Lonely Planet authors visit the places we write about, each and every edition. We never accept freebies for positive coverage so you can rely on us to tell it like it is.Inside This Book 80 art galleries & museums59 bars and cafes reviewed28 kremlins, cathedrals & palaces11 revamped exhibitions & art spaces2 banyas to get naked & sweat inComprehensive map sectionFeature coverage of top sightsRange of planning toolsIn-depth background on Russian art, architecture & literature

Very British Problems: Making Life Awkward for Ourselves, One Rainy Day at a Time


Rob Temple - 2013
    Symptoms include:*Acute embarrassment at the mere notion of making a fuss;*Extreme awkwardness when faced with any social greeting beyond a brisk handshake;*An unhealthy preoccupation with meteorology.Doctors have also reported several cases of unnecessary apologising, an obsessive interest in correct queuing etiquette and dramatic sighing in the presence of loud teenagers on public transport. If you have experienced any of these symptoms, you may be suffering from VERY BRITISH PROBLEMS. VERY BRITISH PROBLEMS are highly contagious. There is no known cure.Rob Temple's hilarious new book reveals all the ways in which we are a nation of socially awkward but well-meaning oddballs, struggling to make it through every day without apologising to an inanimate object. Take comfort in misfortunes of others. You are not alone.

Hiking Big Bend National Park


Laurence Parent - 1996
    Fully updated and revised, this comprehensive guide features forty-seven trails in Big Bend National Park.

Europe: On a Shoestring


Tom Masters - 1999
    A language chapter contains key phrases for 29 languages. The author reviews accommodation, eating and transport options, and features a variety of travel routes to help make planning simple. Over 220 maps are included.

Globejotting: How to Write Extraordinary Travel Journals (and Still Have Time to Enjoy Your Trip!)


Dave Fox - 2008
    By day six of a big trip, people are struggling to recall what happened on days three, four, and five. They return home with mostly empty journals, or bland writing that fails to capture the full spirit of their journeys. Award-winning travel humorist Dave Fox comes to the rescue in this book that's both informative and irreverently funny. You'll learn to: Bring destinations to life with bold details. Splash those details quickly onto your pages so journaling doesn't gobble up your precious vacation time. Elude your Inner Censor and write with confidence. Weave together your outer and inner journeys, using unfamiliar places as a backdrop for self-discovery. Dave shares his favorite journaling techniques, shows how to find time to write in the middle of an exciting trip, and infuses it all with a generous dose of his off-the-wall humor. Whether your journeys are weekend road trips or excursions around the world, this book will help transform you into a travel journaling superhero!

You Don't Have to Be a Star / Once Upon a Cowboy


Susan May Warren - 2016
    And his park ranger job seems just the solution… until a diva movie star walks into his world looking for someplace to hide. But the Cherokee forest isn’t big enough for the both of them, not if you include the trouble MacKenzie has dragged along behind her. And soon she’s stirring up his own murky past—one out for revenge. Which trouble will find them first? Is it even possible to outrun your past and start over? Luke and MacKenzie are about to find out… Once Upon a Cowboy by Lacy Williams Book 1 in the Cowboy Fairytales series A princess on-the-run finds sanctuary where she least expects it… After nearly dying in an assassination attempt, Princess Alessandra of Glorvaird escapes to a place no one would ever think to look for her: small town Oklahoma and a ranch staffed by a herd of wooly, uncouth cowboys. One cowboy in particular gets under her skin, until she sees his softer side. She knows this interlude can’t last forever, but that doesn’t stop her from wishing it might… Former Navy SEAL Gideon Hale might’ve rescued the princess from freezing to death, but the soldier doesn’t trust easily—or at all—especially when his gut tells him Alessandra is keeping secrets. But as Alessandra begins to fit into his life, he discovers another side to the princess—one that he can’t help but like. When Alessandra’s enemies close in, Gideon must fight to save the woman who has become so much more than a princess… Once Upon a Cowboy is a contemporary western retelling of the Snow White fairytale and Book 1 in the Cowboy Fairytales series.

Your Guide to the National Parks


Michael Joseph Oswald - 2012
    This guide provides step-by-step itineraries, kid-friendly activities, and the most popular ranger programs to help plan your family vacation. Thousands of hotels, restaurants, and attractions beyond the parks and 11 suggested road trips make it the ultimate dashboard companion. Exhaustive activity information, including hiking tables, easy-to-find trailhead markers, outfitter details, and backpacking essentials, serves as blueprint for an adventure of a lifetime. With something from everyone this is "Your Guide to the National Parks."

The Works: Anatomy of a City


Kate Ascher - 2005
    When you flick on your light switch the light goes on--how? When you put out your garbage, where does it go? When you flush your toilet, what happens to the waste? How does water get from a reservoir in the mountains to your city faucet? How do flowers get to your corner store from Holland, or bananas get there from Ecuador? Who is operating the traffic lights all over the city? And what in the world is that steam coming out from underneath the potholes on the street? Across the city lies a series of extraordinarily complex and interconnected systems. Often invisible, and wholly taken for granted, these are the systems that make urban life possible. The Works: Anatomy of a City offers a cross section of this hidden infrastructure, using beautiful, innovative graphic images combined with short, clear text explanations to answer all the questions about the way things work in a modern city. It describes the technologies that keep the city functioning, as well as the people who support them-the pilots that bring the ships in over the Narrows sandbar, the sandhogs who are currently digging the third water tunnel under Manhattan, the television engineer who scales the Empire State Building's antenna for routine maintenance, the electrical wizards who maintain the century-old system that delivers power to subways. Did you know that the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is so long, and its towers are so high, that the builders had to take the curvature of the earth's surface into account when designing it? Did you know that the George Washington Bridge takes in approximately $1 million per day in tolls? Did you know that retired subway cars travel by barge to the mid-Atlantic, where they are dumped overboard to form natural reefs for fish? Or that if the telecom cables under New York were strung end to end, they would reach from the earth to the sun? While the book uses New York as its example, it has relevance well beyond that city's boundaries as the systems that make New York a functioning metropolis are similar to those that keep the bright lights burning in big cities everywhere. The Works is for anyone who has ever stopped midcrosswalk, looked at the rapidly moving metropolis around them, and wondered, how does this all work?

If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska


Heather Lende - 2005
    There's no traffic light and no mail delivery; people can vanish without a trace and funerals are a community affair. Heather Lende posts both the obituaries and the social column for her local newspaper. If anyone knows the going-on in this close-knit town—from births to weddings to funerals—she does. Whether contemplating the mysterious death of eccentric Speedy Joe, who wore nothing but a red union suit and a hat he never took off, not even for a haircut; researching the details of a one-legged lady gold miner's adventurous life; worrying about her son's first goat-hunting expedition; observing the awe-inspiring Chilkat Bald Eagle Festival; or ice skating in the shadow of glacier-studded mountains, Lende's warmhearted style brings us inside her small-town life. We meet her husband, Chip, who owns the local lumber yard; their five children; and a colorful assortment of quirky friends and neighbors, including aging hippies, salty fishermen, native Tlingit Indians, and volunteer undertakers—as well as the moose, eagles, sea lions, and bears with whom they share this wild and perilous land. Like Bailey White's tales of Southern life or Garrison Keillor's reports from the Midwest, NPR commentator Heather Lende's take on her offbeat Alaskan hometown celebrates life in a dangerous and breathtakingly beautiful place.

Fodor's Italy 2008 (Fodor's Gold Guides)


Matthew Lombardi - 1983
    Whatever you choose to do, planning a trip to Italy has never been this much fun, or this easy!LOOK INSIDE FOR AN INNOVATIVE, NEW TRAVEL GUIDE!Comprehensive, up-to-date, and easy to use, Fodor’s Italy 2007 remains the best resource for organizing your trip to Italia. Our 2007 edition also flaunts exclusive, new features including indispensable, customized tools for planning your trip, in addition to rich photography that illustrates the distinctive culture of the country. Plus, not only will you read the expert advice of our professional travel writers, but you’ll also review recommendations from everyday travelers like yourself, in our new “Word of Mouth” features throughout the book. Fodor's Italy 2007 is designed so that you spend less time researching and more time relishing what lies ahead on your dream vacation. Plan a perfect vacation, with these new features:Experience Italy like a local:Fodor's Italy 2007 now features insights from prominent locals to give you an authentic taste of the country! From one of Florence's most distinguished restaurateurs explaining the elements of a perfect Tuscan meal to the director of the American Academy in Rome identifying her favorite works in the Vatican Museums.“Word of Mouth” from Fodors.com:Read what fellow travelers are saying about their favorite places to explore and unwind, featured throughout the book. Then, when you return from your trip, share your opinions on Fodors.com and they may get published in our 2008 edition!Make the most of your trip:Tip boxes throughout help save money, bypass lines, and avoid common travel pitfalls. "Eating Well" boxes in every chapter identify the pleasures of regional Italian cuisine. And the is brand new edition provides cultural background on Palladian villas, Mt. Etna, wine in the Piedmont Region, and even an emperor cheat sheet. Photos and Maps:Photographs, drawings, and interactive maps illustrate Italy's most popular attractions, from Venice's Grand Canal to Rome's Forum. Always Up-to-date:Fodor’s Italy guide is updated EVERY year–it’s the most accurate book available!Visit Fodors.com for travel bargains, information on local festivals, maps, vacation planning tips, more reviews and much more! And, to view more insider secrets, visit “Travel Talk” and “Rants and Raves” at Fodors.com/forums for more recommendations from travelers like yourself.