Zwinger went down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon over and over, in every season and just about every kind of boat, usually tagging along with scientists doing river studies. She calls herself an observer at the river’s brim, and she leaves her human companions almost entirely off the page so the canyon can have her full attention. The book runs a calendar year. It opens in January counting bald eagles at Nankoweap Creek and closes with her walking out in snow at the winter solstice. In between, there are tree frogs, evening primrose, spiders, ants, a grain of sand, ravens she compares to Victorian undertakers, and two hundred eighty miles of whitewater.
Downcanyon