The Emerald Mile Quotes

“if there is a point to being in the canyon, it is not to rush but to linger, suspended in a blue-and-amber haze of in-between-ness, for as long as one possibly can. To float, to drift, savoring the pulse of the river on its odyssey through the canyon, and above all, to postpone the unwelcome and distinctly unpleasant moment when one is forced to reemerge and reenter the world beyond the rim-that is the paramount goal.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“But they have preserved an aspect of the American persona that is uniquely vital to the health of this republic. Among many other things, those dirtbag river runners uphold the virtue of disobedience: the principle that in a free society, defiance for its own sake sometimes carries value and meaning, if only because power in all of its forms—commercial, governmental, and moral—should not always and without question be handed what it demands.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“The English novelist J. B. Priestley once said that if he were an American, he would make the final test of whatever men chose to do in art, business, or politics a comparison with the Grand Canyon. He believed that whatever was false and ephemeral would be exposed for what it was when set against that mass of geology and light. Priestley was British, but he had placed his finger on an abiding American truth: the notion that the canyon stands as one of our most important touchstones—a kind of roofless tabernacle whose significance is both natural and national. It is our cathedral in the desert, and the word our is key because although the canyon belongs to the entire world, we, as Americans, belong particularly to it.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“He rowed them past the last of the stars. He rowed them clear of the night's embrace. He rowed them straight into and beyond the break of day. And somewhere along that stretch of river, he also rowed them across an invisible fault line, a seam on the American continent that separates the terrain where the ephemeral events of everyday reality unfold from a more rarefied and singular realm, the place where mythic and permanent journeys of the imagination, such as those of John Wesley Powell, reside - the place of legends.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“Thou shalt not” is soon forgotten, but “Once upon a time” lasts forever.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“The black stream, catching on a sunken rock,   Flung backward on itself in one white wave,     And the white water rode the black forever. —ROBERT FROST”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“From every direction, the place is under assault—and unlike in the past, the adversary is not concentrated in a single force, such as the Bureau of Reclamation, but takes the form of separate outfits conducting smaller attacks that are, in many ways, far more insidious. From directly above, the air-tour industry has succeeded in scuttling all efforts to dial it back, most recently through the intervention of Arizona’s senators, John Kyl and John McCain, and is continuing to destroy one of the canyon’s greatest treasures, which is its silence. From the east has come a dramatic increase in uranium-mining claims, while the once remote and untrammeled country of the North Rim now suffers from an ever-growing influx of recreational ATVs. On the South Rim, an Italian real estate company recently secured approval for a massive development whose water demands are all but guaranteed to compromise many of the canyon’s springs, along with the oases that they nourish. Worst of all, the Navajo tribe is currently planning to cooperate in constructing a monstrous tramway to the bottom of the canyon, complete with a restaurant and a resort, at the confluence of the Little Colorado and the Colorado, the very spot where John Wesley Powell made his famous journal entry in the summer of 1869 about venturing “down the Great Unknown.” As vexing as all these things are, what Litton finds even more disheartening is the country’s failure to rally to the canyon’s defense—or for that matter, to the defense of its other imperiled natural wonders. The movement that he and David Brower helped build is not only in retreat but finds itself the target of bottomless contempt. On talk radio and cable TV, environmentalists are derided as “wackos” and “extremists.” The country has swung decisively toward something smaller and more selfish than what it once was, and in addition to ushering in a disdain for the notion that wilderness might have a value that extends beyond the metrics of economics or business, much of the nation ignorantly embraces the benefits of engineering and technology while simultaneously rejecting basic science.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“It’s sometimes surprising how people can open up when you demonstrate a willingness to listen to their stories with attentiveness and respect.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“A river so clear and transparent that the bright stones suspended within its currents could be seen with the naked eye, glittering with the traces of an incontestable radiance whose depth and distance and truth lay beyond the reaches of any terrestrial imagination.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!” “By it and with it and on it and in it,” said the Rat. . . . “It’s my world, and I don’t want any other. What it hasn’t got is not worth having, and what it doesn’t know is not worth knowing.” —KENNETH GRAHAME, The Wind in the Willows”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“Cradled on the bed of that trailer was a small wooden dory. The boat’s profile was distinctive—an upturned prow that terminated in a sharp point, and a hull whose bottom was curved like the blade of a scimitar. Lashed to her decks were two sets of ten-foot oars hewn from straight-grained Oregon ash, and tucked into the footwell at the center of the boat lay a cable connecting a car battery to a pair of powerful search lamps, the kind of devices that jacklighters use when hunting deer in the dark. There was just enough light to make out her colors—a beryl-green hull and bright red gunwales. And if you looked closely, you could discern the black-and-gold lettering emblazoned along the right side of her bow that spelled her name: Emerald Mile.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“And Petschek had asked—because he was genuinely puzzled by this—why so many people, Americans especially, seemed to feel that happiness was an entitlement. By dint of his own experiences as a refugee and a wanderer, Petschek found the notion to be strangely naive and immature—especially here at the bottom of a chasm whose ramparts offered such irrefutable testimony not only to the smallness of human affairs but also to the universe’s implacable indifference to those hopes and longings.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“And Petschek had asked—because he was genuinely puzzled by this—why so many people, Americans especially, seemed to feel that happiness was an entitlement. By dint of his own experiences as a refugee and a wanderer, Petschek found the notion to be strangely naive and immature—especially here at the bottom of a chasm whose ramparts offered such irrefutable testimony not only to the smallness of human affairs but also to the universe’s implacable indifference to those hopes and longings. Yet”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“Beyond the rapids themselves, the river also concealed a host of other obstacles, wicked spots whose names offered a sufficiently graphic warning of what they would do to you if you let them. The Fangs. Helicopter Eddy. The Green Guillotine. Forever Eddy. The Devil’s Spittoon. No”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“The canyon and her dories embody and elusive riddle. It is a paradox rooted in the dream that many of us share of immersing ourselves so deeply, so inextricably, into a pocket of landscape, or a stretch of river - anything that seems to embody the wildness we have lost - that we may somehow take possession of those places and make them ours. Yet the truth, like an eddy, runs in the opposite direction.
In the end, it is they that claim us. And we who belong to them.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“Out there in the middle of the maelstrom the Eater awaits, heaving and gulping, its mouth like a giant clam’s . . . its mind a frenzy of beige-colored rapid foam. A horrifying uproar, all things considered. Imagine floating through that nonsense in a life jacket. —EDWARD ABBEY”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“(Continued from Pt 1) Like anyone who had ever slid the blade of an oar into that magnificent ribbon of water, the only objection he could possibly have raised resided in Grua's egregious failure to call him up and ask if he wanted to be part of the damn thing.
In light of those sentiments, Thomas had no interest in forcing the crew of the Emerald Mile to pull over. And thus his dilemma, rooted in the supremely inconvenient truth that his responsibilities and his feelings in this matter were irreconcilably opposed. What was called for, it seemed, was a miniature piece of Kabuki theater in which each party could adopt an attitude of imperious indifference and pretend to ignore the other. So what he did was this-
He simply walked away.
He turned his back on the river, stalked off the deck of the motor rig, and started climbing the hill in the direction of the scouting terrace to watch the run unfold. p296”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“I knew exactly who it was and what they were doing," he would recall nearly thirty years later, chuckling at the memory.
He knew a few other things too, starting with how this stunt was going to put him into one hell of a fix. Which, in an unexpected twist, was now doevetailing with some rather complicated feelings that Thomas harbored about himself: who he was, what he did, and the place he occupied in the canyon.
Thomas's time on the river had straddled the golden age of guiding, the period in which his visitation had skyrocketed from a handful of eccentrics such at Martin Litton and Georgie White to tens of thousands of river vacationers. Thus he was old enough to remember the freedom that had prevailed in the canyon country before the hordes of tourists had started pouring in, back when a man could launch a boat and disappear downriver without having to ask for permission or wait in line, devoid of any constraints other than those imposed by the water and the rocks, an adventure in the best sense of the word. And as those days receded ever further into the rearview mirror, there were moments- right now being one of them- when Thomas was forced to wonder about it all.
In truth, no one who had tasted those liberties could look back on that time with anything other than a deep sense of longing. Like everyone else who had known the river during that era of innocence, Thomas mourned its passing and privately grieved that it would never return. Which is why part of him sometimes rebelled at the very restrictions he sought to enforce, if only because rules- even rules that were universally accepted as necessary and good- seemed to cut so directly against the spirit that the river had once embodied. This sense of loss now prompted Thomas to ponder a notion that was not merely unorthodox but, when viewed from a certain angle, downright subversive.
Was it possible, he wondered, that a measure of what had been lost- the thing that had once defined the essence of this place, the thing that was now in the process of disappearing forever- was that very thing perhaps being offered a chance to express itself one more time, fleetingly, irresponsibly, nobly, right here before him? And in light of that possibility, Thomas wondered, where did his truest allegiances lie- with the duties that he was supposed to be performing as a uniformed employee of the Department of the Interior? Or to a sense of duty that had nothing whatsoever to do with the law?
Officially, of course, Thomas could in no way condone any of the nonsense that was about to take place, which was misguided on so many levels that he didn't even know where to begin. This piece of performance art that Grua was trying to pull off was not only dangerous and irresponsible but just plain wrong. In addition to undermining the authority of the Park Service, dishonoring the tragedy that had already taken place at Crystal, and setting an example that might be followed by others- which could lead to God only knew what kind of craziness- Grua's stunt was an insult to the people up at the Glen Canyon Dam, who were even now desperately trying to prevent Lake Powell from blowing its gasket.
But setting all that aside for a moment, what did the man behind the badge actually think?
Well, as he stood on the deck of the motor rig and watched the Emerald Mile complete its approach, Thomas had to acknowledge the tremors of admiration and envy were pulsating through his entire body. Yes, this was scandalous and deplorable and unforgivably dumb. But at the same time, there was no way to deny that a speed run under these conditions took ferocious courage, a shining sense of vision, and a hellacious set of balls. And for that reason, his most visceral response to the quest unfolding before his eyes was pure and absolute. It was fricking glorious. (Continued in Pt 2. Page 295)”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“But that didn’t matter because, despite the leaks, the flashboards had effectively raised the upper edge of a nine-trillion-gallon swimming pool by four feet. In a single stroke, Gamble and his men had expanded the capacity of Lake Powell by conjuring roughly 645,000 acre-feet of additional storage space out of thin air.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“The river was a beast that could be neither controlled nor tamed, only run with. And to be allowed to run with the beast, you had to accept and embrace and ultimately find a way of celebrating its inscrutable, ungovernable, glorious wildness.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“Prior to 1963, the year that the Glen Canyon Dam was finished, the Colorado hauled an average of nearly half a million tons of sand and silt past Yuma, Arizona, sixty miles upstream from the river’s mouth, every twenty-four hours. (Its record, set in 1927, was more than twenty-seven million tons of sand and silt in a single day.)”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“I had a pair of buckskin breeches [and] they were so wet all the time that they kept stretching and stretching,” Hawkins wrote in his journal. “I kept cutting off the lower ends till I had nothing left but the waist band.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“One way of putting this into perspective is to consider that France and the United States together excavated 357 million tons of dirt while digging the Panama Canal, during roughly fifteen years of total labor. In Powell’s day, the ancestral Colorado was capable of transporting the same amount of soil, by weight, in less than a fortnight.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“The country has swung decisively toward something smaller and more selfish than what it once was, and in addition to ushering in a disdain for the notion that wilderness might have a value that extends beyond the metrics of economics or business, much of the nation ignorantly embraces the benefits of engineering and technology while simultaneously rejecting basic science.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“hours”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“hydroelectric”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“He was stubborn and combative and intensely playful; fiercely self-righteous and enormously sensitive to the needs of others; often inspiring, frequently ornery, never punctual, endlessly original, chronically cross-grained, and almost invariably a colossal pain in the ass.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“Crossing of the Fathers.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything. else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon

“June 25, 1983, was not any given evening. Not by a long shot. And with twilight now fading, the face of the water turned menacing and unknowable as the biggest flood in a generation throttled downstream into the night.”
― Kevin Fedarko, The Emerald Mile: The Epic Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon