Torrents As Yet Unknown, Wickliffe W. Walker
Torrents As Yet Unknown, Wickliffe W. Walker
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Torrents As Yet Unknown
Daring Whitewater Ventures into the World's Great River Gorges

Author: Wickliffe W. Walker

Narrator: Christopher P. Brown

Unabridged: 7 hr 2 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 09/12/2023


Synopsis

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 listeners 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 walls of their canyons and atop powerful torrents of cascading water.

About Wickliffe W. Walker

Wickliffe W. Walker represented the United States in three whitewater canoe and kayak world championships and in the 1972 Olympics at Munich. Following his competitive career, he mounted expeditions in Bhutan, Pakistan, Mexico, and elsewhere, including to the Tsangpo River of Tibet that is the subject of his book Courting the Diamond Sow. He is a National Geographic explorer and author, and a fellow of The Explorers Club, and he presently lives and writes in the Blue Ridge of Southwestern Virginia. He studied at Dartmouth College, the John F. Kennedy School for Special Warfare, and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. He served twenty-one years in the United States Army as an engineer, military intelligence, and special forces officer, retiring in the rank of lieutenant colonel after overseas service in Vietnam, Thailand, and Germany.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Zandt on August 22, 2023

In the 1990s, I joined a group of newcomers for a day of exploration in the tranquil waters near Long Island on a kayaking trip. This venture was atypical for me, given my more sheltered lifestyle. Struck by the experience, I pledged to repeat it, aspiring to tackle real kayaking and conquer the cha......more

Goodreads review by Debra on August 19, 2023

Torrents As Yet Unknown: Daring Whitewater Ventures into the World’s Great River Gorges Wickliffe W. Walker Rivers “remain to this day places of spiritual wonder, of geographic enigma, of hidden danger and awesome beauty. The rivers don’t carve only the bedrock; they shape the men and women who confro......more

Goodreads review by Diane on July 09, 2023

Torrents as yet Unknown by Wickliffe W Walker A compilation of exciting whitewater rafting adventures. The strength and fierce determination that these kayakers/rafters elicited to attempt the almost impossible odds to survive the rapids is overwhelming. The ride along through the descriptions is en......more

Goodreads review by Nancy on December 31, 2023

fascinating!......more

Goodreads review by Rolf on November 07, 2023

An enjoyable way to get to know some of the most exciting rivers in the world, and have a vicarious thrill as if you were rafting them yourself.......more