COURTING THE DIAMOND SOW: A WHITEWATER EXPEDITION ON TIBET'S FORBIDDEN RIVER, by Wickliffe W. Walker; Adventure Press, National Geographic; 2000; 252 pages; $26.
Paddling kayaks down this unexplored gorge at the east edge of the Himalaya Mountains is the mountaineering equivalent of climbing Everest.
This book chronicles efforts of 11 men, including two Sherpas, to do just that. Their trek came to a halt when Douglas Gordon, 41, was killed when his kayak overturned on Oct. 16, 1998.
The book moves slowly at first but provides extensive background to the trip's hows and whys. Like any trip into remote Tibet, just getting to the Tsangpo River was a rugged adventure in itself. Most of the time, the trek was "boat-assisted hiking" and "each paddler's safety was almost exclusively in his own hands." The logistics of the trip were as complex as any mountaineering adventure to K2 or Everest. This isn't just wilderness — it's isolated wilderness on the other side of the world, where "roads," by our standards, aren't even cow trails.
It was only on Page 198 when my inattentive reading was overcome in a big way — Gordon was from Salt Lake City. An extensive five-day search of almost 11 miles of river failed to yield Gordon's body or his craft. The boaters had to use their satellite telephones to contact Gordon's wife, Connie, and tell her of her husband's death.
Gordon was a research chemist and doctoral candidate at the University of Utah and was on the U.S. Canoe Team from 1981-87. He had lived in Utah for about five years.
The book recounts how the group debated whether to end their trek after the accident. There are no set guidelines for handling tragedies like this in outdoor adventures. They decided their trip was over and held a memorial for Gordon with Christian and Buddhist prayers.
It took a week for the boaters to haul themselves and their gear out of the remote gorge, which is four times deeper than the Grand Canyon. The rapids here are among the most turbulent in the world, but the biggest danger was the area's remoteness. This accident had made the group, sponsored by the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council, face reality.
The title of the book comes from the deity Dorje Phagmo — the "Diamond Sow" — one of the holiest sites in Tibetan scripture. The Tsangpo River Gorge is thought to be a symbolic representation of that deity and rumored to lead to the doorway of paradise.
Sprinklings of details about life in Tibet are similar to those found in many of the new mountaineering books about exploits in the area. However, I didn't find this tale as compelling, if only because it took place in a gorge, comparatively low elevation for the "roof of the world" — with rushing water as a centerpiece — not snow and ice.
The final portion of the book contains a tribute to a lost comrade.
With its strong Utah tie, the book is definitely worth a read for all outdoor lovers. Knowing the Beehive State connection from Page 1 would probably make for much more attentive reading than I experienced.
E-mail: lynn@desnews.com