Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet's Tsangpo River FROM THE PUBLISHER
In February 2002, in the Heart of the Eastern Himalayas, seven extreme paddlers set their kayaks on the sandy beach, squeezed into the brightly colored shells, and stretched their sprayskirts over the cockpits of their boats. With a thrust of their paddles, the seven began what is widely acknowledged as the world's last great adventure challenge: the first descent of the Tsangpo River Gorge. The Tsangpo Gorge in southeastern Tibet has lured explorers and adventurers for more than a century and has resisted every attempt to traverse its length. The Gorge -- as steeped in legend and mystery as any landscape on earth -- is sacred to Buddhists and captivating to Westerners. Geographical societies since the Victorian era have mounted expedition after expedition trying to penetrate this real-life Shangri-La: They have resulted variously in controversy, slavery, and death.
The team of seven kayakers attempting this audacious feat launched a meticulously planned assault on the Gorge. The paddlers were river cowboys, superstars in the universe of extreme kayaking who hop from continent to continent with only one desire: to climb into tiny plastic boats and throw themselves into maelstroms that rival a North Atlantic storm. Led by 30-year-old radical kayaker Scott Lindgren and supported by Nepali Sherpas, more than 60 porters, and an international team of climbers, their trip was a throwback. It was a grand 19th century-style expedition equipped and provisioned with more than 2,500 pounds of food and gear, enough to last 50 days without resupply. Eighty-seven men made their way through country as remote and sublime as anything on earth. With them was Peter Heller, the official expedition journalist as well as a longtime contributor to Outside magazine. Himself a paddler of some distinction and a veteran of several international first descents, Heller chronicled the expedition. What unfolded was a story of rampaging waters and equally turbulent egos, of stunning effort and breath-taking skill set against a background unspoiled in beauty yet wrecked politically. It is a story of a fluid place where East and West have collided for more than 100 years. Filled with the almost-unbelievable history of the Gorge's exploration, with the physics and beauty of world-class kayaking, with the hydrogeology of cataclysmic flash floods, and with the often-cruel politics of Tibet, Hell or High Water paints the portrait of a grand adventure in a place that time never touched.
SYNOPSIS
Heller, a contributor to Outside magazine and world-class paddler from Denver, served as official expedition journalist in 2002 on the first successful kayaking trip through the Tsango River Gorge sacred to Buddhists. He describes extreme white-water kayaking through the world's deepest river gorge in the context of the political, geological, cultural, and exploration history of the region. The book includes a briefly annotated reference list and a satellite map of the Gorge. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Dedicated kayakers have long had their hearts set on the Tsangpo River, which cuts a gorge through Tibet many times deeper and steeper than the Grand Canyon; successfully navigating it is akin to snowboarding down Everest. The last major expedition of the 1990s ended when one of the kayakers drowned in the raging currents, but in 2002 a group led by adventure filmmaker Scott Lindgren, one of the extreme sport's most prominent heroes, gave it another shot. Heller was assigned to cover the expedition for Outside and, despite having completely worn out the cartilage in one hip, he decided to go for it. The story takes him to one of the most beautiful spots on the planet, still almost entirely untouched, but also subjects him to the ugliest aspects of human nature. Heller is unflinchingly honest about the hostility he faced from Lindgren and his companions, who openly attack the journalist for "getting rich" from their story, as well as the resentment that begins to well inside him at their condescension. Meanwhile, the locals hired to carry the equipment realize they have the upper hand and start extorting more money for their services. The drama on shore, however, is easily matched-sometimes surpassed-by the action on the river, which includes a few chilling brushes with death. Heller nimbly blends the history of the region into his gripping modern trek, as the crew lives up to the legacy of the great explorers before them. An offhand remark made to the paddlers early in the journey-that their story could be the kayaking equivalent of Into Thin Air-has come true in the best possible way. Agent, Kathy Robbins. (Oct.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Lest we think that grand adventure into the unknown-like that of 19th-century explorers Burton, Livingstone, and Stanley-can now be found only in outer space, this wonderful book reminds us that there are still incredible challenges on Earth awaiting the intrepid. Heller, a well-traveled kayaker and writer for Outside magazine, superbly chronicles the saga of a bunch of daring and meticulous kayakers who successfully ran the deadly Tsangpo River Gorge, the paddler's equivalent of Mount Everest. Their successful quest conveys all the drama and derring-do of the works of Thor Heyerdahl or the explorers of the so-called Dark Continent. An enthralling tale for anyone who joys in conquests of new frontiers.-Jim Casada, Past President, Outdoor Writers Assn. of America Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
AudioFile
Rowdy and acrobatic, athletic and impassioned, a team of the world's best kayakers and adventurers tackles Tibet's most remote, dangerous, and white-knuckle-inducing stretches of white water, the fabled Tsangpo River. Outdoor enthusiast and journalist Heller is along for the ride, embodied ably by reader Patrick Lawlor, who brings a tough, outdoorsy, muscular quality to the narration. His impressions of the "Dude, where's my kayak?" characters and a rough-and-ready Aussie steal the show, though this story is riddled with real danger and intrigue. Heller's skillfully descriptive prose brings listeners to the brink of the icy waters and plunges them in. D.J.B. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
A hearty report on the running of Tibet's Tsangpo River, modestly diminished by the author's observer status. Heller (Set Free in China, 1992, etc.), an accomplished kayaker in his own right, was not asked to join the team of seven men assembled to make the first run down the Upper Gorge of the Tsangpo River, unknown but understood to be hellacious due to the elevation drop. Instead, Outside magazine, which sponsored the expedition, asked him to serve as the project's writer. Immediately he was at loggerheads with team leader Scott Lindgren, who had his own designs on selling the story-if he came back alive (the Tsangpo has a bad habit of killing people). Heller does a smooth job of introducing the participants and, at first, a rip-roaring job of evoking the river's conditions. But there are only so many ways you can describe "colliding sheets of water, whirlpools, and chaotic waves" before the modifiers simple run out. "A trough in which you could comfortably park Greyhound's express bus to Endsville" is good, but more phrases run along the lines of "10,000 cfs of steep, technical, bronco-busting mayhem," which is not so good. Wisely, Heller turns to the history of the area's exploration, to its natural history (man-sized ferns, rhododendron forests, and alarming wildlife), to the kayakers' river stories (endless and boggling), and to fine accounts of the villages: "The air smelled of blossoms and tilled earth and rushed with the sound of the two rivers. We could hear chopping and distant singing." Despite the secondhand material from the kayakers, who were not the best communicators, readers fail to gain any sense of what it was like to be seated in one of the boats, getting beat like agong and loving it. Considering the irascibility of the team leader and his distance from the action, Heller works a difficult story gamely, getting enough color into the narrative to keep readers involved, if not exhilarated. Agent: Kathy Robbins/The Robbins Office
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