Title: Still a classic, though a little frayed
Product review: This is a still a must-read for serious river rats, showing how our belief in the "big rock candy mountain" overruled the evidence before our eyes as we developed the West. This book was written in the early 1950s, and two signs of age were apparent. First, Stegner had not seen many of the river sections he describes, including the Grand Canyon of the Colorado and the Desolation-Grey Canyons section of the Green. The boom in commercial river running now makes many of us more expert than Stegner on that subject - kind of fun! Second, and less fun, the old boy has many subtle ways of downplaying the importance of women in the story. Small example: Stegner names Powell's brothers but only mentions the number of sisters, even though their roles in the story all quite small. These are nits born of his times. Still a fascinating tale.
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