Grand Canyon National Park: A Photographic Natural History

This boldly illustrated and painstakingly organized expedition through the Grand Canyon "puts in" at River Mile 278 and muscles its way up the Colorado River, disembarking every few miles to examine the rocks and to consider the ways of the Canyon’s denizens, both living and ghostly: the mountain lion, the giant ground sloth, the slender scorpion, the century plant, the Havasupai, the explorers and the hermits. Hutchinson, a geologist, expertly guides the reader through the corridors of deep time as well as up the big side canyons of the Big Ditch. The text and gorgeous illustrations progress in an orderly way, passing upstream through the Canyon’s morphological segments: the Esplanade (Miles 278-143), Kaibab (143-77), Chuar (77-53), and Marble Canyon (53-0). Every one of the 120 photographic subjects and every topographic feature mentioned in the book is plotted on a splendid four-color map of Grand Canyon National Park specially commissioned for this book.