5 Books to Bring With You on the Grand Canyon

5 Books That You’ll Love Reading on Your Grand Canyon Raft Trip

by Beth Henshaw

Your Grand Canyon trip is booked. Soon you’ll be driving to Lee’s Ferry, where an impossible red desert reveals a river flowing through its canyons. While you’re packing your bags, the rapids are roaring and the ravens can’t wait for you and your lunch box to hit the beaches again. Before you take off into the wilderness with no cell phone service or ability to Google all your burning geology questions, make sure to pack a few books with you. This recommended book list will deepen your understanding of Grand Canyon’s ecology, geology, and night sky. Wind down around the campfire with a bedtime story or start each day with a poem. Bring these books down the Colorado River with you for an engaging and memorable trip!

1. Down Canyon: A Naturalist Explores the Colorado River through Grand Canyon by Ann Zwinger

Travel in and out of the Grand Canyon with Ann Zwinger by boat and backpack through every season of the year. This book is compiled from four seasons of researching and adventuring in the Grand Canyon. Her sketches will delight you just as much as her ecological knowledge of the region. Zwinger blends science and poetry when she describes the canyon’s geology, weaving in the history of place with her current experience. Down Canyon can be purchased anywhere books are sold.

2. Grand Canyon Geology by L. Greer Price

You could spend a lifetime floating down the Colorado looking up at the canyon walls and wondering how this beautiful place came to be. Carry this book with you to answer those burning geology questions. This is not a light read, but more of an informative guidebook with photographs that explains plate tectonics, erosion, and other geologic processes. Grand Canyon Geology can be purchased in AZRA’s online shop.

3. The Grand Canyon Reader by Lance Newman

The Grand Canyon Reader is the perfect book to pull out for a quick bedtime story around the campfire. This anthology compiles short stories, poems, and essays from Native voices, river runners, naturalists, poets, explorers, and more who will immerse you even deeper into Grand Canyon’s natural wonders. Popular desert southwest writers included in this anthology are Ann Zwinger, Edward Abbey, Terry Tempest Williams, Linda Hogan, and Craig Childs. This book can also be purchased online at AZRA’s store. 

4. River and Desert Plants of the Grand Canyon by Kristin Huisinga, Lori Makarick and Kate Watters

You’re going to want to keep this comprehensive plant guide handy to discover the intricate plant life that thrives in the cracked bedrock, side canyons and naturally occurring springs.The Mojave desert, Sonoran desert, and The Great Basin desert all converge at the Grand Canyon, creating a diverse desert ecosystem unlike anywhere else. This was one of the first comprehensive guides written about the Grand Canyon and includes over 300 species. You can purchase this book on Amazon or anywhere else you buy books.

5. In Old Sky by Lauren Camp

Lauren Camp wrote these poems while serving as an Astronomer in Residence at Grand Canyon National Park, making this the perfect book to curl up with in your sleeping bag under the twinkling Milky Way after a long day on the water. During her residency, Camp interacted with guests and even wrote a poem from hundreds of visitor’s responses to seeing the Grand Canyon, which showcases a collective, world wide perspective of the canyon. Camp is currently serving as the Poet Laureate of New Mexico. In Old Sky can be purchased here on Grand Canyon Conservancy’s website.

Bonus book if you are star obsessed: Night Sky: A Guide to Our Galaxy by Tyler Nordgren and Chad Moore can also be purchased in the AZRA online store.

Whether you buy one or all of these books to bring with you on the Grand Canyon, get ready for sun faded, sandy pages because you’ll want to keep these handy. Enjoy the magic of reading a good book next to the gentle hum of the river or under the brilliant dark sky. Book recommendations 2, 3 and 4 can all be found in our river library, so you’ll be able to read them while you’re on your adventure if you’d like. Our river library has a nice selection of Grand Canyon-related books to keep you entertained if you find you need to fill some extra time. 

Interested in what 5 books you should read BEFORE your trip? Check this blog out!

About the Author:

 Beth Henshaw is a writer based in the desert southwest. She is currently pursuing her M.F.A. in creative writing at Western Colorado University. She is published in the latest anthology of Four Corners Voices as well in Canyon Voices Lit Magazine. More of her work can be found on her website www.empathicadventurers.com and on her Instagram @blog_by_beth.

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