Burntwater

I stumbled across this book accidentally while researching a book about Glen Canyon and Lake Powell. I started reading it in the library parking lot, and finished it the next night in bed, around two a.m. I WOULD have finished the book the very same night I got it, except that Scott Thybony did such a terrific job of invoking the feeling of the outdoor West that I had to fill a backpack and take my wife on an unplanned desert camping trip. "Burntwater" visits an amazing variety of my very favorite places in the West, and is full of interesting history, great stories, unique facts, and insightful observations. And the writing: the writing is superb. (Bats "flicker"!) I found this book to be every bit as good as Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire"--much more Zen-like, and much less preachy; a good description of the West is reason enough to protect the West--it doesn't always need an insane prophet to yell about it. This book distills and bottles the spirit of the Four Corners states; read it in the West and you'll find yourself running outside to be a part of it; read it somewhere else, and you'll find yourself going crazy to get here.

Author Scott Thybony shares with readers his fascination with and love of the Four Corners region of the Southwest. Burntwater is a loosely joined series of descriptions of Thybony's travels to various locations within this sparsely populated region: the Grand Canyon, back country on the Navajo Reservation, the Goosenecks region of the San Juan River, northern New Mexico, and others. Scott's wandering narrative describes his experiences in each place, often involving travel companions or new found acquaintances and sometimes just himself. One moving chapter describes how he nearly died from dehydration in the Grand Canyon while hiking to the site of his brother's death in an airplane/helicopter collision. This is a wonderful book filled with gentle descriptions of sometimes physically harsh locations and circumstances. Scott describes but does not judge and, unlike so many other authors, refrains from directing readers to specific emotions or thoughts. Those he leaves up to you. You can easily read this book's 117 pages in a single sitting, but the invitation to this marvelous part of the Southwest may result in a literary and even physical journey of discovery that can last a lifetime.