Downriver: Into the Future of Water in the West
Written by Heather Hansman
Narrated by Allyson Ryan
4/5
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About this audiobook
Fights over the river's water, and what's going to happen to it in the future, are longstanding, intractable, and only getting worse as the west gets hotter and drier and more people depend on the river with each passing year. As a former raft guide and an environmental reporter, Heather Hansman knew these fights were happening, but she felt driven to see them from a different perspective-from the river itself. So she set out on a journey, in a one-person inflatable pack raft, to paddle the river from source to confluence and see what the experience might teach her. Mixing lyrical accounts of quiet paddling through breathtaking beauty with nights spent camping solo and lively discussions with farmers, city officials, and other people met along the way, Downriver is the story of that journey, a foray into the present-and future-of water in the west.
Heather Hansman
HEATHER HANSMAN is an award-winning freelance writer and a former editor at both Powder and Skiing magazines. She’s Outside magazine’s environmental columnist and a contributing editor at Backcountry Magazine. Her work has been included in The Best American Essays 2015. She once won a bag of pasta in an Italian big-mountain-skiing contest (tenth place out of eleven women). She lives in Seattle, Washington.
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Reviews for Downriver
20 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This is the author’s memoir about her rafting trip down the Green River, tributary of the Colorado, and the conversations she had with residents along the way. She mixes in expert commentary and a bit of nature writing, as well as relating her own insecurities about the trip. This book is dry, rambling, and not particularly well organized. Most of this material is already well-known to people who live in the western US. Those unfamiliar with these issues can probably find the same information in other, better written sources.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Here's something novel--an author who examines an incredibly complicated problem and actually goes on site, listens to all sides, questions her own preconceptions and biases, and has empathy for actual people. This book was a cold drink of water.