This is one of those goofy exploration books that's much more about the person doing the exploring than it is about the area. I would have liked to have found out a lot more about the canyon, but instead I read about how much they suffered, how intrepid they were to carry on, and how meaningful it all was. They couldn't hike along the river, so their only goal was to walk below the upper rim on the shelves. Fine. Whatever. But so what?