A 750-mile misadventure in the Grand Canyon

Chris Morgan (0:00)

Hey, Wild listeners, if you're craving an episode with adventure stories, this one's for you. I can't wait to share it with you. Thanks for tuning in. If you're enjoying The Wild and want more content, check out our Patreon. We've got tons of unheard footage from this season and seasons past. There's a link to Patreon in the show notes. Okay, enjoy the show.

The Grand Canyon. Almost everybody has seen it, whether it's on a road trip to Northern Arizona, or on a postcard. It's one of the seven natural wonders of the world. Its major artery, the Colorado River, provides water to seven states. But it can also be rife with danger. As we were reminded this past summer when flash floods along Bright Angel Creek blasted through the canyon, killing three hikers.

There's a raw power to this ever changing place.

It's one thing to see the canyon from a distance, even if that is standing on one of its storied rims. But it's a whole other experience when you step down into it, hike deep inside and walk along its ancient ridges. Best selling author Kevin Fedarko did just that. In fact, he walked the entire length of it.

Kevin Fedarko (1:22)

Every step that you take into the canyon carries you further and further back into the past.

Chris Morgan (1:30)

Its towering layers of rock soaring more than a vertical mile high into the sky tell us a story about how this canyon came into existence.

Each layer was created during different eons and eras in the history of the planet, and they're stacked on top of each other sequentially with the youngest layer at the very top. It's 240 million years old. The bottom layer, 1.9 billion.

Kevin Fedarko (1:56)

And so in addition to being this incredible geologic feature, the canyon is a time machine. And when you are moving down it and up it, you are moving forward and backward in time, and you are being invited to contemplate time in a way that no other landscape feature on earth will do for you.

Chris Morgan (2:12)

Just over a decade ago, Kevin and his friend and National Geographic photographer Pete McBride ventured into the canyon to hike the 750-mile trek through plunging rocks, spiky cactus and dangerous heat.

At the time, there would be two of only a few dozen people to ever walk the entire canyon. Their goal was to write about the experience for National Geographic and to uncover the human-made threats that were facing the canyon at the same time. There were times when they questioned how smart this idea might be.

Kevin Fedarko (2:45)

It took the Colorado River roughly 6 million years to carve the Grand Canyon into the Colorado Plateau. It took the Grand Canyon five and a half days to break Pete McBride and I in half.

Chris Morgan (2:57)

Head on, they faced serious heat exhaustion, dehydration and had multiple near-death experiences, including almost running out of food during a snowstorm.

Kevin Fedarko (3:07)

Every part of your body hurts at the end of the day. At one point, I actually told Pete that my hair hurts and I was convinced that it did.

By the time we descended to the river, I think we were down to four or five jelly beans. No. We could have kept going for another day or two and then at that point, things would have gotten pretty ugly.

Chris Morgan (3:28)

What would have happened?

Kevin Fedarko (3:30)

I assume we would not have made it.

Chris Morgan (3:35)

But they lived to tell the tale, and nine years later, Kevin wrote a book about it, titled A Walk in the Park, The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon. Today the remarkable story of Kevin's relationship with this epic canyon, his journey on foot to walk the length of it, and what he learned along the way through pain, misery, humiliation and laughter. From KUOW in Seattle and Chris Morgan Wildlife, welcome to The Wild.

I'm driving to the I'm going around in circles in Fairhaven, near my hometown of Bellingham, looking for the acclaimed author Kevin Fedarko, which is funny, because he's a global adventurer, and I'm one of those too, and we can't seem to find each other.

Is that him? No, he's in a big sprinter van, and I was going to say that's going to be easy to find, but in Bellingham, there's a lot of big sprinter vans, you know, the big camping vans. He's in town as part of a book tour he's doing, as a long road trip, and my plan is to meet up with him and take him on a short hike into the woods, perhaps somewhere he's not too familiar with, because he's a desert guy. Okay, this is starting to look pretty funny, just circling around. Oh, that's him, that's him. Sure enough, there's a huge gray van bumbling down the road, looking for parking.