Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet's Tsangpo River

more than just an expedition recount, it made me feel the tension all the way through. Very hard to put down.

This is a detailed, unsentimental report on an amazing trek and high-risk journey. You don't need to know one thing about kayaking to enjoy this rough and tumble adventure. The cultural barriers are as fascinating as the plunges down skyscrapers of water. The description of the topography and the characters on this journey are wonderful, compelling. This "Into Thin Air" on a ribbon of churning foam and turbulence.

This is an extrodinary book. How these paddlers trekked up this Gorge (with kayaks)and paddled the Tsangpo is absolutely amazing. I did like when the author talked about the history of the Gorge..the steepness..etc. I'm sad that I finished it. No, there is no pictures (for a certain 4th grader)...BUT if you want to SEE this magnificent scenery AND WATCH these exceptional paddlers then buy Scott Lindgren's DVD "Into The Tsangpo Gorge"..its the movie version to this book. ITS ABSOLUTELY JAW DROPPING! Once you watch this DVD..you will want to read the book again. Anyone who has an interest in this part of the world will ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS BOOK AND DVD!!

Peter Heller will have you gripping your seat as he transports the reader into the Tsangpo Gorge. The story is told with beautifully crafted sentences which compensate for the lack of photos by filling your mind with exquisite word pictures. Of course the adventure itself is the main excitement, but the personalities of the kayakers present another layer of drama as the adventure roars down the river. These men are on a sort of exploration, true, but it is a mistake to imagine that they are heroes, since this kind of adrenaline- and testosterone-filled journey is by nature a very self-involved endeavor. For readers who love to mentally throw themselves over the edge without actually risking death, HELL OR HIGH WATER is a classic wild ride.

a terrific book that gives a real feel for the inside workings of a difficult and dangerous expedition. the white water descriptions are right on and make you feel as if you were there. a great book for the arm chair traveler.

For years, Tibet's Upper Tsangpo gorge had loomed as the ultimate challenge in whitewater. Carving the deepest gorge in the world (over 15,000 feet deep) and dropping in places 250 feet/mile this monsterous river had repelled every attempt to navigate it's turbulent and treacherous waters. In 1998, a group led by Wickliffe Walker attempted a first descent at 60,000 cfs+, only to have U.S. Kayak Slalom Team member Doug Gordon drown almost midway through the gorge. Their perilous journey is chronicled in the excellent book The Last River. After extensive planning using satalite imagery, a team of the world's top kayakers led by extreme filmmaker Scott Lindgren (and sponsored by GM/Outside magazine) attempted a fresh first descent in February 2002 at a more reasonable 15,000 cfs. While Lindgren and his 5 buddies were battling the rapids, Peter Heller (on assignment from Outside magazine) hiked the side canyon on a bad hip with an army of 64 porters providing logistical support. Heller chronicles the boaters' near death experiences from the relatively safe vantage point of the trail overlooking the river. Although unable to provide a personal account of the kayaking experience, his writing is brilliant, describing a Shangri-La like beauty that gives the reader a feeling of being surrounded by one of the most remote and enchanting places on Earth. Heller also vividly portrays the six personalities of this elite kayaking group; in particular focusing on the intense displeasure that Lindgren has for Heller's book proposal. He also describes an intense standoff between the porters and the expedition members, where the porters demand, on threat of death, almost twice their originally contracted pay. (This hardball bargaining style seems to be a recurring theme on many Himalayan expeditions.) He also gives a brief history of the Tibetan people following the invasion and near-destruction of this Buddhist nation by the Chinese in the 1950s. After enduring a gigantic flood along the Tsangpo in 2000, many of these indigenous people are being relocated so that China can turn this rugged region into a national park. Overall this makes for excellent adventure reading. It's good to know there are still modern day heroes conquering unconquered rivers and coming home to tell about it.