Review by Eduardo Rey Brummel
Dinosaur National Park – March 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dinosaur: Four Seasons on the Green and Yampa Rivers.
By Hal Crimmel, text; Steve Gaffney, photographs.
Published in 2007, by University of Arizona Press.
ISBN: 0816524300
THIS PAST NOVEMBER, University of Arizona Press released the latest addition to its Desert Places Series, Dinosaur: Four Seasons on the Green and Yampa Rivers. It may seem odd using “desert” and “river” in the same sentence, and in his introduction, Hal Crimmel addresses this: “The absence of water may define many desert places, but the presence of water defines the high desert oasis of Dinosaur National Monument…. The ever-changing magic of water and sky, we discovered, exists here in all four seasons.”
Crimmel and Steve Gaffney, childhood friends from small-town New York, rafted the rivers, three of four seasons, hiking along the Green, when winter clogged it with frazil ice.
Gaffney, living in Manhattan Beach, California, and accustomed to salty, tidal water, rises to the challenge of recording these river trips, their canyons and terrain. Reading, from Gaffney’s bio, “This is his first book,” made me drop this book. While perusing the photographs reproduced here in black and white, I often had the impression of viewing the work of David Muench, taken through Ansel Adams’ camera. Perhaps Gaffney was letting his talents gestate, waiting for a time like this to make them public. Keep your eyes open for his future photography; such diligence will surely reward you.
Crimmel has been published in venues as varied as South Dakota Review, ISLE, and Paddler Magazine, and is no lightweight, himself, especially when it comes to writing about rivers. Before mentioning Starvation Canyon, he shows us where, “layers of sedimentary rock droop over one another like a pastrami sandwich.” There’s a reason this former river guide is currently an associate professor of English at Weber State University.
Crimmel also tells us some of the history of Dinosaur National Monument, including its role in the continuing battle for the West’s water. During the 1940s, twenty-plus years after the monument’s establishment, plans for the Colorado River Storage Project — which would flood Dinosaur’s canyons — began taking shape. The BLM apparently drew more compelling pictures in locals’ minds than did the National Park Service.
“A reservoir– a flat sheet of blue water– is easy to understand. Powerboats. Sunblock. No shift of perspective required. Muddy, turbulent rivers in inaccessible canyons are harder to comprehend. The value of their wildness, especially in 1946, was not quickly grasped.”
It was a close call, one which Glen Canyon didn’t survive.
But Crimmel isn’t always dry and serious. At a riverside campsite in summer, they encounter a seasonal park ranger, who jokes, “Some places, I think [nudity] is required.” At another campsite, come October, Crimmel attempts a fire.
“Old-time backwoods campcraft bests the sodden wood and gusting wind, and a healthy fire is blazing in seconds. A single match is all that’s needed. Well, that, and a half-quart of white gas, which produces a satisfying explosion.”
I’m eager to read Crimmel’s earlier writing; and I’ll be anxiously awaiting more of Gaffney’s work. I felt this book was a bit thin, but is it necessarily a flaw to be left wanting more? With, Dinosaur, University of Arizona Press continues the high standards of its Desert Places Series.
