Like river reads the raise your hackles? Then you’ll love a new book out by longtime expedition paddler Wick Walker, “Torrents As Yet Unknown: Daring Whitewater Ventures into the World’s Great River Gorges.”
Whitewater stands side-by-side with mountaineering in participation and public attention, yet it has lagged in generating its own literature. While that has all changed as the sport starts earning its share of the limelight, a new book out by longtime expedition paddler Wickliffe Walker ups whitewater’s street cred in the literary world even more. Torrents As Yet Unknown helps fill that gap for readers interested in human drama played out against great natural challenges, especially as they pertain to massive and obscure rivers.
A narrative tour of 10 of some of the world’s most harrowing whitewater adventures—spanning five continents and 40 years—and guided by a legendary whitewater trailblazer, “Torrents” is a history of daring whitewater explorers that stands right alongside other classic works on mountaineering, outdoor survival, and extreme sports. (Its publisher calls it “perfect for fans of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Candice Millard’s River of the Gods.”)
In 10 real-life adventure stories, pioneering whitewater explorer Walker examines what lured a generation of incredibly daring pioneers into some of earth’s most wondrous yet forbidding river canyons, including the “minus” section below Victoria Falls on the Zambezi; the Great Bend of the Tsangpo in Tibet; Tiger Leaping Gorge on the Yangtze; the flanks of Mount Everest; and more.
Loaded with personal stories, triumphs and tragedies, Walker details what these adventurers found there, and within themselves. The characters, driven by different motives and visions, but united by their compulsion to seek the unknown and the pulse of free-flowing water, are as remarkable as the rivers, geography and conditions they confront. This tome leaves its high water mark in whitewater literature.
Find it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Torrents-As-Yet-Whitewater-Ventures/dp/158642372X
About the author: Lieutenant Colonel Wickliffe “Wick” Walker (United States Army, retired) is a product of Dartmouth College, the John F. Kennedy School for Special Warfare, and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. He represented the United States in international whitewater canoe competition at the World Championships of 1965, 1967, and 1971, and at the 1972 Summer Olympics at Munich. A Fellow of the Explorers Club, he has led whitewater expeditions around the world, including to Bhutan in 1981 and to Tibet in 1998. He lives and writes in the Virginia Blue Ridge. (www.WickliffeWalker.com)