A Walk in the Park : The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon - Kevin Fedarko

A Walk in the Park

The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon

By: Kevin Fedarko

Hardcover | 18 September 2024

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A New York Times Bestseller * Winner of the 2024 National Outdoor Book Award in Outdoor Literature * Winner of the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * Named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times, Air Mail, Smithsonian Magazine, and Financial Times

“A triumph. Fedarko doesn’t describe awe; he induces it.” —The New York Times Book Review * “Passionate…memorable…life-affirming.” —The Wall Street Journal

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. They struggled to make their way through a vertical labyrinth of thousand-foot cliffs and crumbling ledges where water is measured out by the teaspoon and every step is fraught with peril—and where, even today, there is still no trail along the length of the country’s best-known and most iconic park.

Along the way, veteran long-distance hikers ushered them into secret pockets, invisible to the millions of tourists gathered on the rim, where only a handful of humans have ever laid eyes. Members of the canyon’s eleven Native American tribes brought them face-to-face with layers of history that forced them to reconsider myths at the center of our national parks—and exposed them to the threats of commercial tourism. Even Fedarko’s dying father, who had first pointed him toward the canyon more than forty years earlier but had never set foot there himself, opened him to a new way of seeing the landscape.

And 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.
Industry Reviews
"A Walk in the Park is a triumph. Fedarko doesn’t describe awe; he induces it, with page-turning action, startling insights, and the kind of verbal grace that makes multipage descriptions of, say, a flock of pelicans feel riveting and new. . . . Readers will be tempted to visit the canyon just to keep the book’s spell alive longer—and to feel Fedarko’s company in their awe." —Blair Braverman, The New York Times Book Review

"An adventure book about hiking the entirety of the Grand Canyon, sprinkled with a bit of history and anthropology. Superb writing, and thought-provoking on why people choose to persevere." —Financial Times, Best Books of the 2024

Other Editions and Formats

Paperback

Published: 16th July 2025

Available: 16th July 2025

Preorder. Will ship when available.

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