Roderick Frazier Nash is a professor emeritus of history and environmental studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. He was the first person to descend the Tuolumne River (using a raft) [from: en.wikipedia.org]
The Big Drops tells stories about ten of the largest and most daunting whitewater rapids in the western half of the US. It includes history, geology, and geography, but of course the main attractions are the hair-raising stories of whitewater rafting.
The ten drops: - Clavey Falls on the Tuolumne River, California - Rainie Falls on the Rogue River, Oregon - Hell's Half Mile on the Green River, Colorado - Warm Springs on the Yampa River, Colorado - Satan's Gut in Cataract Canyon of the Colorado River, Utah - Redside on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, Idaho - Big Mallard on the Main Salmon River, Idaho - Granite Creek in Hells Corner Gorge of the Snake River, Oregon/Idaho border - Crystal Rapid in the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, Arizona - Lava Falls, also in the Grand Canyon
The color photos by John Blaustein are beautiful, on glossy inset pages. They are almost all photos of the Grand Canyon. I love the Grand, but it would be nice to see similar quality photos of the other rapids in the book. For each rapid there are black & white action photos, some historic. The focus is on inflatable rafts and wooden dory boats; there's only one kayak photo.
I bought this book in Feb 1980, shortly before my first rafting trip on the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. I've moved over a dozen times since, and have shed most of my books, but I've never been able to part with this one, as each time I pick it up I get lost on the river.