A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon

by Kevin Fedarko ($34.00, hardcover), available to order online here or call the store, 505-988-4226)

Review by New Mexico Poet Laureate Lauren Camp, who was selected as Grand Canyon's fourth Astronomer in Residence to explore through the written word the subtle emotions, aesthetic qualities, and complex thoughts we all feel under the vastness of the night skies.

I started this book within days of returning from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, where I’d gone to deliver poetry programs for their 35th Star Party and to hike, breathe deeply and be in constant awe. As soon as I drove past the bison at the edge of the park heading home, I already wished to be back at the Canyon.

A Walk in the Park is a love letter to a place worth every mile and a dream of exploration. The main plot follows two men intending to do a thru-hike of the entire Canyon without being at all

prepared. The journey is harrowing, amusing, exhausting and often exhilarating. Fedarko does a brilliant job of making me feel all of it.

I made slow progress through the book because I wanted to savor the steps and rock layers Fedarko and his friend traveled. I appreciated seeing the canyon through angles and levels that I had not known. I wanted to hold onto the historical facts, outdoor adventure information and compelling tribal perspectives offered in these pages.

By the time I reached the fourth chapter, The Dragon Bravo Fire had started in the canyon and was burning across the North Rim. Each morning, I read devastating updates on the fire. (In fact, it is still burning as I write this. It is only 44% contained.) Later in each day, I would return to Fedarko’s journey, delighted to be back in the land of uplift and deep strata. I was grateful to experience the Grand Canyon wilderness, to travel with eyes and heart along or into another vertical cliff or beside a ledge, in search of water, listening to the night action, under the stars.

Always in danger and in wonder.

* Winner of the 2024 National Outdoor Book Award in Outdoor Literature  

* Winner of the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

* Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, Air Mail, Smithsonian Magazine, and Financial Times