The Emerald Mile
The Story of the Fastest Ride in History Through the Heart of the Grand Canyon
Kevin Fedarko · 2013 · History
12 min · 12 chaptersNarrated in your voice
What it's about
Kevin Fedarko braids three stories into one: the 1869 exploration of the Colorado River, the building and near-catastrophic failure of Glen Canyon Dam, and the illegal 1983 speed run of a wooden dory named the Emerald Mile through record floodwaters. The book argues that the Grand Canyon is both a monument to wildness and a case study in engineering hubris, and that the men who ran it fastest were also its most devoted witnesses.
Reading plan
Pick a finish date and Genius lays out the days — the plan shows today's target and keeps you honest.
Read together
Start a circle and share the code — everyone sees everyone's honest place in the book. Accountability, not leaderboards.
Who it's for
- Readers who love adventure narratives built on real history rather than invented plots - People interested in American environmental politics and the fight over western water and dams - River runners, boatmen, and outdoor enthusiasts who want the deep backstory of Grand Canyon rafting culture
What’s inside
- 1A River Unknown1 min
The Grand Canyon's reputation as an impassable void shaped a century of exploration and myth before anyone treated it as navigable water.
- 2Damming the Desert1 min
Glen Canyon Dam was built less because the Colorado River needed control than because mid-century America wanted proof that engineering could conquer any landscape.
- 3The Man Who Loved the Canyon and Lost Glen1 min
David Brower's failure to stop Glen Canyon Dam turned him into the most uncompromising environmental advocate of his generation, at real cost to the causes he later won.
- 4Wooden Boats Against the Current1 min
The dory, a fragile wooden rowboat borrowed from ocean fishing traditions, became the preferred instrument of a river-running culture that prized skill and intimacy with the water over safety and convenience.
- 5The Snowpack That Broke the Dam's Design1 min
Glen Canyon Dam nearly failed in June 1983 because its engineers had not designed it for a flood as large as nature actually delivered.
- 6A Deadly Rapid Reborn1 min
The flood's transformation of Crystal Rapid into one of the most dangerous stretches of whitewater in the canyon's history exposed how much the river's danger depended on decisions made hundreds of miles upstream.
- 7The Emerald Mile Runs1 min
Kenton Grua's illegal, unsanctioned speed run through record floodwaters succeeded because it combined obsessive skill with a level of risk no official trip would ever have permitted.
- 8Aftermath and Reckoning1 min
The flood and the record run together revealed that Glen Canyon Dam had not eliminated the river's wildness so much as postponed it, storing up risk that periodically returns in concentrated form.
- 9The Canyon as Warning and Inheritance1 min
The book closes by arguing that the Grand Canyon's fate is not settled, and that every generation must decide anew whether to treat the river as a resource to manage or a wilderness to protect.
About Kevin Fedarko
Kevin Fedarko is a journalist who spent years working as a boatman's assistant in the Grand Canyon before writing this book. He previously worked as an editor at Outside magazine and covered international conflict and disaster zones, bringing that same reporting rigor to reconstructing the canyon's history and the 1983 flood.
