Fascinated by "swift streams" from childhood, Clyde Eddy first saw the Colorado River in 1919 and vowed that he would someday travel its length.

Eight years later, with no experience but having read accounts of unsuccessful attempts to navigate the river's perilous Grand Canyon rapids, he had three heavy mahogany boats built.
He then recruited a handful of East Coast college students as crewmen, hired an inexperienced guide, and decided to bring along a heavy motion picture camera along so he could film portions of the unfolding drama.

On June 27, 1927, Eddy's troop of "11 college boys, a hobo, a mongrel dog, and a cub bear" (as Sports Illustrated described the expedition years later) left Green River, Utah, on the eight-hundred-mile journey to Needles, California. When they all arrived safely forty-two days later, they became the first men to successfully navigate the Colorado River thru the Grand Canyon during its annual high water period.

This book, which was first published in 1929 and unavailable for decades, is the original narrative of that thrilling, but foolhardy, adventure. The story is very well told, hair-raising and suspenseful. This is a true adventure story.

Eddy had with him a movie camera and the 1927 documentary-style film is also available.