ROCK SPRINGS – Authors and Western Wyoming Community College Profs. Rick Kempa and Chris Propst will join fellow author John Yohe, of Portland, Ore., in presenting selections from Kempa’s new edited anthology, On Foot: Grand Canyon Backpacking Stories, on Wednesday, Oct. 15, at the Rock Springs campus, and Thursday, Oct. 16, at the Green River Center. Both presentations begin at 7 p.m. and will be followed by a book signing.
On Foot: Grand Canyon Backpacking Stories is published by Vishnu Temple Press and is available for purchase in the WWCC Bookstore. Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.
The essay collection features pieces from 27 authors who have backpacked the Big Ditch and penned elegant, humorous and occasionally hair-raising accounts of their travels. Propst’s selection, “The Unnamed Side Canyon,” considers the Grand Canyon experience through the lens of personal loss; Yohe’s essay, “Holy Water,” illustrates the essential, ironic truth that a quest for water lies at the heart of his excursion through one of the world’s great desert landscapes.
“The essays in this book span the full range of Grand Canyon experiences, from wide-eyed wonder to grim, near-death encounters,” said Kempa, who will read excerpts from other essays by authors not in attendance. “The authors are a diverse group—some are novice hikers, others have been living with the canyon for most of their lives. We hear from rangers, trail workers, scientists, guides, and—the largest group of all—outdoor-loving, adventurous citizens like you and me.”
The book’s other authors include: Kristi Rugg, a Park Ranger who recounts a midnight hike in high summer up the South Kaibab, when exhaustion gives way to renewal; D.J. Lee, who relates how a daughter and father see each other most clearly in a pivotal moment of shared danger on the Beamer Trail; and Nic Korte, who, after 150 of the best days of his life in the canyon backcountry, finds himself on a moving slab of rock headed for a cliff, shouting, “No, no, no, no!”
“A wealth of adventures and discoveries await the readers of this, the first-ever anthology focusing on the Grand Canyon backpacking experience,” Kempa writes in the book’s introduction. “In it, twenty-seven writers offer authentic, close-up views of what it is like to be afoot on particular days in particular places within the vast canyon wilderness. Many of their stories illuminate as well a truth that veteran canyon hikers come to know: time spent beneath the rim, out of the press of human time, can change who you are and re-direct how you live your life. The canyon does not just invite transformation; it all but guarantees it, the way a full moon guarantees a high tide – provided you can shut down the brain factory or stay beneath the rim long enough for it to wind down on its own.”
On Saturday, Oct. 4, Kempa, Propst and Yohe joined many of the book’s other contributors for a reading at the Grand Canyon Trust in Flagstaff, Ariz. The upcoming presentations continue the book’s public rollout following its publication last month.
These free public readings are sponsored by the Arlene and Louise Wesswick Foundation and Western Wyoming Community College. The Rock Springs presentation will be held in Room 1309; the Green River presentation will be held at the Green River Center.
