A dramatic narrative tour of 10 of the world’s most incredible whitewater adventures—spanning 5 continents and 40 years—guided by a legendary whitewater trailblazer This fascinating history of daring whitewater explorers stands alongside classic works on mountaineering, outdoor survival, and extreme sports Perfect for fans of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Candice Millard’s River of the Gods In 10 thrilling real-life adventure stories, pioneering whitewater explorer Wick Walker examines what lured a generation of incredibly daring pioneers into some of Earth’s most wondrous yet forbidding river canyons: below Victoria Falls on the Zambezi, the Great Bend of the Tsangpo in Tibet, Tiger Leaping Gorge on the Yangtze, the flanks of Mount Everest, and more Loaded with great moments and personal stories, Wick details what these adventurers found there, and within themselves. The extraordinary characters, driven by different motives and visions, but united by their compulsion to seek the unknown and the pulse of free-flowing water, are as remarkable as the daunting geography and conditions they confront. Whitewater sport today stands side-by-side with mountaineering in participation and public attention, yet it has lagged in generating its own literature. Torrents As Yet Unknown will help fill that gap for readers interested in human drama played out against great natural challenges. Mountaineering history is deep and its literature rich, but whitewater adventurers approach and experience the same forbidding terrain from a different vantage, between the steep walls of their canyons and atop powerful torrents of cascading water.

The harrowing account of the pioneering descent of Tibets Tsangpo River one of modern explorations greatest challenges which ended in tragedy with the death of Olympic Paddler Doug Gordon. A COMPELLING AND DRAMATIC EXPEDITION ACCOUNT set in one of the worlds most beautiful and remote regions. The Tsangpo is one of the last great uncharted rivers in the world. It's the Everest of whitewater, except unlike Everest, it's never been done. -- Arlene Burns, the Washington Post ROMANCE OF THE WORLD'S FORBIDDEN AND SECRET PLACES: Mysterious and sacred, Tibet has fascinated explorers for more than a century. The stretch of the Tsangpo attempted by Walker and his team is the source of the legend of Shangri-la, and the model for James Hiltons novel, Lost Horizons. CONTROVERSY OVER THE 'DISCOVERY' OF TSANGPO'S HIDDEN FALLS: In 1924 British explorer Frank Kingdon-Ward observed what he believed to be the highest waterfall on the Tsangpo, a waterfall to rival Niagra. His observations led to a race to document these falls, which has attracted generations of explorers.FILM TIE-IN: The Walker expedition is the subject of a National Geographic Explorer special that will re-air at the time of publication. In 1926 botanist F. Kingdon Ward described one of modern explorationIs greatest challengesUtracking the course of the Tsangpo River of Tibet. In a mysterious region called Pemako, the Land of Flowers, the mighty Tsangpo loops around the eastern anchor of the Himalayan Range, cutting the deepest canyon on earth and emerging more than nine thousand feet lower on the plains of Assam, India, renamed the Brahmaputra. He and others added pieces to the puzzle he called Ithe riddle of the Tsangpo gorges, O but no one has yet followed the river throughout its course. For almost four decades on several continents, a small group of American companionsUWick Walker, Tom and Jamie McEwan, and Doug Gordon were privileged to participate in the emergence of a new and thrilling sport, whitewater racing. Moving from World Cup and Olympic levels to expeditions around the globe, Wick Walker and his companions were drawn to an area of Tibet where the highest and deepest of the EarthIs recesses come together.Perhaps no place in the world is more dramatic (or less known and explored) than the magnificent series of gorges that lie in far southeastern Tibet. In late September 1998, after years of planning, including a month-long reconnaissance into the gorge in 1997, and garnering support from the National Geographic Society, Malden Mills Industries, and a host of other sponsors, the expedition finally launched into the treacherous gorges for a first descent. Four whitewater paddlers, perhaps the best possible team in the world, would descend the Tsangpo, supported and resupplied at intervals by a team of four trekkers accompanied by two sherpas, local guides and porters, and a videographer from National Geographic. The descent, which began with difficultiesUa huge river swollen by a season of Ififty-year floodsO ended in tragedy with the death of renowned chemist and Olympian, Doug Gordon, who perished on October 16th while running a small put powerful waterfall. Although his teammates searched for his body for four days, his remains were never found, vanishing into the treacherous waters. The expedition was immediately abandoned.Courting the Diamond Sow is a compelling expedition account shaped by the first-hand diary accounts of the kayackers as they passed through the gorges; the history of this mysterious corner of the world some refer to as Shangri La and the attempts to explore it; and a cultural profile of this remote Tibetan region.