Adios Amigos: Tales of Sustenance and Purification in the American West

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Description

In this freespirited collection of essays, Page Stegner weaves natural history, conservation polemic, ecology, and wilderness adventures on a number of the West's major whitewater rivers. Stegner moves effortlessly from his own experiences on the Colorado, Yampa, Green, San Juan, Dolores, and Missouri rivers to first explorations by historical figures such as Lewis and Clark and John Wesley Powell, to modern controversies that threaten the continued unspoiled isolation of these special places.

From its opening essay recalling a hilarious, albeit hazardous, journey down the Owyhee River in southeastern Oregon to the final episode on Lake Powell, Stegner's narrative is rich in vivid detail, laced with sardonic humor, and always grounded in a passion for the West both its past and the promise of its future.

Reviews

"Each blistering chronicle of a cathartically deathdefying river journey in a heartbreakingly beautiful or bruised place is an occasion for brusque history lessons, selfdeprecating hilarity, and flinty ruminations on our abuse of western lands . . . this rapids rider dispenses tonic straight talk and irreverent humor from the ecofront." Booklist

Author Bio

Stuart Page Stegner is the son of novelist Wallace Stegner. He was a novelist, essayist, and historian who wrote extensively about the American West.