In Southwestern Colorado the Dolores River tumbles out of San Juan Mountains to join the Colorado River not far upstream from Moab, Utah.The first Spanish frontiersmen named it for Our Lady of Sorrows. They must have been having a bad day; the only thing sad about this lovely canyon is the McPhee Reservoir which blocks the upper river to irrigate bean fields near Cortez, Co., but in a big snow year, like the one just finishing, enough water passes by the dam to create a river renaissance. Two hundred mile and twelve day trips are possible, although most people do shorter segments.

Dr. Roderick Frazier Nash is a retired professor of History and Environmental Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara, and the author of classics such as Wilderness and the American Mind .(Yale University Press, 2001). Outside Magazine called it "one of the books that changed out world." A real-life Indiana Jones, he has been a professional whitewater river guide since the 1960 with over 60 descents of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.