Hell Or High Water

Although John Wesley Powell and party are usually given credit forthe first river descent through the Grand Canyon, the ghost of JamesWhite has haunted those claims. White was a Colorado prospector, who, almost two years before Powell's journey, washed up on a makeshift raftat Callville, Nevada. His claim to have entered the Colorado above theSan Juan River with another man (soon drowned) as they fled from Indianswas widely disseminated and believed for a time, but Powell and hissuccessors on the river publically discounted it. Colorado River runnersand historians have since debated whether White's passage through GrandCanyon even could have happened. Hell or High Water is the first full account of White's storyand how it became distorted and he disparaged over time. It is also afascinating detective story, recounting how White's granddaughter, Eilean Adams, over decades and with the assistance of a couple ofnotable Colorado River historians who believed he could have done whathe claimed, gradually uncovered the record of James White's adventureand put together a plausible narrative of how and why he ended upfloating helplessly down a turbulent river, entrenched in massivecliffs, with nothing but a driftwood raft to carry him throug