Dropping into the unknown on a rubber raft, hurled and beaten against rocks and cliff walls through narrow canyon chutes, only to round a blind bend, go vertical on a 10-foot standing wave, and flip over backwards into a seething, deafening cauldron of near-freezing whitewater… Such is the life of the brave souls who dare commit themselves to ride the backs of surging untried rivers. Captured vividly in the words of the adventurers and original photography from the expeditions, First Descents brings together the world’s most respected river explorers. Including true tales from Richard Bangs, Yvon Chouinard, Payson Kennedy, Jeff Rennicke, David Roberts, Royal Robbins, Tao Berman, John Yost, and other adventurers, this newly revised and expanded version of the classic released in 1989 is more spine tingling than ever. Readers will travel to exotic, rugged, and fearful places such as Upper Canyon Johnson Falls in Canada, the Pandi River in Papua New Guinea, the Ikopa River in Madagascar, the ever-challenging Niagara Gorge in New York, the Colorado River in Arizona, the Baro River in Ethiopia, the Indus in Pakistan, and the Kongakut in Alaska.

First Descents captures the excitement, fear, and elation of more than four decades of river exploration.