orman Nevills hammered together his first crude boat from a horse trough and a privy, launched it below his home in Mexican Hat, Utah, and rowed his bride Doris down the San Juan River for their honeymoon. They fell in love with the river and realized others could find a similar thrill. Within four years Nevills had invented the idea of whitewater tourism and was running several commercial trips each summer down the San Juan.
In 1938 Nevills took the next step, designing a new craft for serious whitewater, and taking on the formidable rapids of Cataract Canyon and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. For twelve years Nevills tackled the San Juan, Green, Colorado, Salmon, and Snake Rivers, never flipping a boat nor losing a passenger. When he and Doris died in a tragic plane crash in 1949, Nevills was by far the most experienced whitewater man in history.
National media found Nevills irresistible and portrayed him as the dazzling wizard of whitewater. some boatmen who worked with him found him all too human, however, and launched a counter-campaign of vitriol that outlasted Nevills by many years.
Now river historian and editor Roy Webb presents Nevills not through the publicist’s eyes, nor those of his detractors, but through Nevill’s own, in the form of his river journals.
In these pages, Nevills shares his fears, his frustrations, his failings, but also his utter joy in the beauty and excitement of the river and his drive to share it with the world.

“High, Wide, and Handsome, The River Journals of Norman D. Nevills”, Roy Webb, editor, Foreword by Brad Dimock, March 2005, $21.95 paper, 0-87421-603-6, $39.95 cloth, 0-87421-602-8, 302 pages, 6 x 9, photos

ach year millions of people visit the Grand Canyon to view its scenic beauty. Most of them probably wonder about how it came to be, and why it looks so different from the scenery closer to home, a topic that has entranced and challenged geologists for nearly a century and a half.
Until recently, details of the on-going debate over the origin and evolution of the Grand Canyon were to be found scattered through dozens of scientific articles available only to those with access to a good academic library and the time to dig them out. Several recent publications have now put this debate, and contrasting views, within easy reach of anyone interested in the details.
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“Grand Canyon: A Different View” by Tom Vail, 2003, Master Books, P.O. Box 726, Green Forest, ar 72638, 104 pages, Hardcover, $16.99
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Tom Vail’s book, Grand Canyon: A Different View, is a colorful example of “Creation Science”: it explains the origin of the Grand Canyon from a perspective of biblical literalism. To say this book has provoked controversy is an understatement. Customer reviews on Amazon.com, for example, break down along religious lines. Tom’s supporters, as well as detractors, seem to agree that some books (and ideas) deserve burning, or at least suppression, although they disagree on which ones merit this special attention. The various rants (pro and con) do little credit to either religious or scientific perspectives, but the attention and controversy may have served to sell more books. Controversy aside, Tom’s book stands out in one respect: it’s chock full of beautiful photographs, many of them by Charly Heavenrich. And according to the author, “All contributions have been peer-reviewed to ensure a consistent and biblical perspective.” In the view of “Creation Scientists” (there are contributions by about two dozen writers), geology is pretty simple: “...most rocks we see on Earth today would have been formed during two very short periods of time. The first was the six-day creation week, about 6,000 years ago when the entire planet was produced. The second was the one-year Flood when the planet was reshaped. By comparison, not much happened in the roughly 1,500-year period between Creation and the Flood, or in the roughly 4,500-year period since.”
In this view, all the rocks from the Tapeats up to the Kaibab (as well as the rocks at the Echo and Vermilion cliffs) were laid down as the earth was inundated by Noah’s flood, and as the flood receded, “the carving of the canyon would have taken place when the sedimentary layers were still soft, allowing the catastrophic erosion process to quickly, and easily, cut through the layers.” All of these events happened, according to the authors, in a single year!
If the flood was “a catastrophic, global event”, and the above explanation makes sense, non-creationists might well wonder why the unique scenery of the Grand Canyon is confined to a small section of the American Southwest and why other parts of the world look so very different. A few calculations reveal that a world-wide flood that would cover the Kaibab at the south rim only requires forty days and nights of steady rain at the rate of about an inch and a half a minute. The titles discussed below explore some possible explanations for the unique features of the Grand Canyon, but invoke a universe a couple million times more extensive in time and space to do so; Noah’s flood is not one of the contending ideas.
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“Colorado River Origin and Evolution: Proceedings of a Symposium Held at Grand Canyon National Park in June, 2000” Edited by Richard A. Young and Earle E. Spamer, 2001, Grand Canyon Association, P.O. Box 399, Grand Canyon, AZ 86023, 280 pages, Paper, $25
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Colorado River Origin and Evolution contains 33 papers from a symposium at the South Rim held in June of 2000 which was attended by more than 70 geologists. This is the classic collection of papers reflecting current thinking on how and why the Grand Canyon exists. Many of these papers contain technical details that may be opaque to readers with a only a general interest in geology, and they have not been peer-reviewed with an eye towards a “consistent...perspective”.
In the sciences, peer-review does not require agreement with any particular conclusion, but aims at insuring minimal compliance with accepted research methods and reasoning.
People with a background in geology will find this an interesting and informative read. Recent research and newer dating techniques have shed new light on old ideas about critical events in the history of the river and canyon. An old idea that climate change and overflowing basins upstream, rather than headward erosion and stream capture, may have helped establish the course of the Colorado River through Grand Canyon seems to be gaining supporters. New studies show that the cutting and deepening of the canyon may be even faster than previously thought. But—as always—the timing of some critical events and the relative importance of proposed mechanisms (the “technical details” remain open questions, and the experts continue to disagree.)
Two new books set out to explain the ideas—and controversies—surrounding the history of the river and the canyon to the general reader. Covering much of the same grounds and touching on the careers of some of America’s greatest geologists, either would make an excellent addition to the ammo box or bookshelf of any armchair geologist curious about the history of the Colorado River and the development of the amazing landscape called Grand Canyon.
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“Grand Canyon: Solving Earth’’s Grandest Puzzle” by James Lawrence Powell, 2005, Pi Press, New York, NY, 309 pages, Hardcover, $27.95
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James Lawrence Powell (no relation to John Wesley)—author of Grand Canyon Solving Earth’s Grandest Puzzle—is the former Director and President of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. He also taught geology for twenty years at Oberlin College, and last year he entertained an enthusiastic audience at nau Cline Library with his impersonation of John Wesley Powell reminiscing about his trip through the canyon in 1869.
Grand Canyon: Solving the Earth’s Grandest Puzzle has a broad focus, and traces the physical and intellectual exploration of the river—and its geologic puzzle—from the era of John Wesley Powell to the 21st century. Along the way, we meet many notable scientists, including Clarence Dutton, Grove Karl Gilbert, Eliot Blackwelder, Chester Longwell, Charlie Hunt, Eddie McKee, and Ivo Lucchita (to mention a few) and we see how ideas about canyons, rivers, and landscapes have evolved over time. In addition, there’s the story of Powell’s river trip and subsequent career, and other historical details that provide the backdrop and context for the development of geological concepts about rivers and canyons and how they are formed. It’s illustrated with a number of maps and diagrams, some familiar historic photographs, and a jacket design featuring the Panorama from Point Sublime by William Henry Holmes. Although there is no formal bibliography, chapter by chapter references to the geologic literature and other sources serve the same purpose.
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“Carving Grand Canyon: Evidence, Theories, and Mystery” by Wayne Ranney, 2005, Grand Canyon Association, P.O. Box 399, Grand Canyon, AZ 86023, 160 pages, Paper, $14.95
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Flagstaff writer and guide Wayne Ranney—author of Carving Grand Canyon: Evidence, Theories, and Mystery—is an adjunct professor of geology at Yavapai College in Sedona, and leads field trips throughout the Southwest for a number of organizations including the Museum of Northern Arizona, Grand Canyon Field Institute, and Smithsonian Journeys. He’s a former river guide on southwestern rivers and has been a naturalist and lecturer on guided excursions to all seven continents, and has a long standing interest in the geology of the Grand Canyon and the surrounding area.
In Carving Grand Canyon Ranney covers much of the same ground as Powell, but with a much tighter focus on the geology. There’s an orderly progression of topics, from background on the Grand Canyon “Enigma” to a discussion about how rivers carve canyons. Then there’s a long chapter on the history of geologic ideas about the canyon, organized around the geologists who were the principal players during the 19th, 20th , and early 21st century. As in Powell’s book there are photos of most of the geologists, and a liberal assortment of quotations in which their ideas are expressed in their own words. But unlike Powell, the focus is almost exclusively on the geology—Powell’s river trip and career, and other tangential topics, don’t divert the readers attention.
The numerous illustrations are, in a word, spectacular, and include eye-grabbing scenic photography, Landstat images from the usgs, paintings by Bruce Aiken, paleogeographic maps, and block diagrams which elucidate geologic features and ideas. Most of the illustrations are in color and, as is typical of other recent publications of the Grand Canyon Association, careful attention has been paid to the details that make this a beautiful, as well as informative, addition to anyone’s bookshelf. A “Scientific Bibliography” lists the principal sources for readers who might want to pursue the subject further in the library.
It’s easy to follow the progression of ideas from Newberry’s recognition of the role of water in cutting the canyon, to currently popular concepts like headward erosion, stream capture, the complex history of the river, etc. Some topics receive individual treatment, while others are covered in the sections about the geologists who came up with the ideas.
Each chapter ends in a concise summary, and the book finishes with a broad summary and overview of the various topics that were discussed. Ranney identifies the questions and issues that remain unresolved, and explains why these uncertainties still exist after 150 years of research: primarily missing, undiscovered, or ambiguous evidence.
Overall, both books are informative. Powell’s approach sheds more light on the history and background of the ongoing debate over the origin of the Colorado River and Grand Canyon, but Ranney does a better job of explaining the geological issues, theories, and remaining uncertainties. In many ways, the two books compliment each other well, and anyone seriously interested in increasing their understanding how, and why, the Colorado River and Grand Canyon reached their current form would profit from reading both. Each author, on occasion, managed to mention, or explain, something in a way that grabbed my attention, and provided an insight that I missed in the other book.
Curiously, while the title of Grand Canyon: Solving the Earth’s Grandest Puzzle suggests that there is a solution to the puzzle, it’s easy for the reader to come away mystified about the nature of the solution. Powell mentions a “new theory”—he calls it the “Lazarus theory”—that seems to have gained wider acceptance at the recent symposium. This idea—that rivers can die, only to come back to life again later (perhaps even running the other way)—has been around for awhile, and takes different forms depending on who is describing their preferred version of events that are concealed behind the mists of time.
All of these applications of the Lazarus idea have one thing in common, the agreement that rivers can have complex histories, and an old landscape, developed under conditions that no longer exist, can be rejuvenated in a different form later. This brings to mind a point that Ivo Lucchitta has been emphasizing for many years: the Grand Canyon did not develop on a blank slate. Instead, there was an earlier landscape that set the stage for what we see today, and although it may be difficult to imagine exactly what it used to look like in detail, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest the broader features and their implications.
An excellent example of the application of the “Lazarus theory” is found in Andre Potochnik’s study of the history of the Salt River, where the evidence is well preserved. Long ago, drainage through the Salt River canyon was towards the ne, when that was the downhill direction. Later, as the drainage was disrupted by regional events, the canyon filled with gravels which recorded information about where they came from and which direction they were going. Then, for a time, through-going drainage ceased and the river died. Eventually, the downhill direction was reversed, water started flowing again, and the old canyon was utilized by a river running the other way, the modern Salt River.
In the same manner, a much earlier river may have drained the area now occupied by the Grand Canyon, towards some (currently unknown) destination to the ne. When regional events disrupted the drainage pattern, the river valley may have become choked with sediments that the river couldn’t carry away. After a period of inactivity—and pretty recently in a geological sense—this old river valley may have been resurrected by a river running in the opposite direction. A glance at a satellite photograph or topographic map of Marble Canyon shows “barbed tributaries” that argue for a river running down the slope of sedimentary rocks in a direction opposite of what we see today: an observation as simple, and important, as Wegner’s observations about the shape of the coastlines of Africa and South America, and their implications for moving continents.
As different parts of today’s Colorado River—the Grand and the Green, the San Juan, and the Little Colorado River, each of which may have had independent lives until recent times—came together and eventually found an exit at or near sea level, the river gained water and strength. Rapid down-cutting over a large area followed, and carved the landscape we see today, but (at the same time) removed much of the evidence of what the landscape looked like before the integration of the various parts into today’s whole.
Curiously, Andre—and Don Elson, who advocated another Lazarus variation—aren’t mentioned in Grand Canyon: Solving the Earth’s Grandest Puzzle, but both get attention in Carving Grand Canyon: Evidence, Theories, and Mystery. As for the “mystery,” both authors make it clear that much of the critical evidence is currently missing, and that some central questions may never be fully answered. So—to be honest about this—there’s no magic or final “solution,” only some improved ideas that look promising for future investigations, as well as lingering mysteries.
Overall, Ranney does a better job of explaining and illustrating the ideas, old and new, that are likely to be combined in future theories. But Powell’s book has a broader focus on the historical element that adds much to understanding why the Grand Canyon is of such special interest to geologists today, in spite of nearly a century and a half of intense scrutiny by some of the best minds in the history of the science. Both of these are fascinating and parallel stories that overlap at many points.
Readers who also want the latest technical details will definitely want to consult Colorado River Origin and Evolution and decide for themselves about the significance of the latest research. But if you insist on a clear cut, definitive “explanation”—without the burden of uncertain or conflicting details, a universe older than 6,000 years, or the possibility of future revisions, there’s always Grand Canyon: A Different View. Regardless of your approach, if looking at the canyon makes you wonder “Why?”, there should be enough to think about to keep you entertained for years to come.

Drifter Smith