Pat Morrow, Jeremy Schmidt, Art Twomey, Searching for Tao Canyon (Rocky Mountain Books Ltd., 2018).
“The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.”
–Edward Abbey
My wife (Karin) and I have spent some challenging moments in slot canyons, sunlight teasing varied hues off rocks, wading through water knee and waist deep to reach dry ground and ledges, ever wary of flash floods. So, it came as a sheer delight when Searching for Tao Canyon came my way to review. It should be noted, at the outset, that this lavish book with exquisite photographs is, in many ways, a much delayed and necessary homage to the pioneering work of Art Twomey (a BC mountaineering legend of sorts who died tragically in the Purcell Mountains in 1997).
Twomey had his mentors of sorts but Searching for Tao Canyon is as much about a more meaningful way to live as it is about slot canyons and an artistic way of photographing their compelling and time shaped beauty. The book ends of this must read tantalizer and beauty of a book poignantly describe and discuss the early origins of slot canyon treks, the many challenges faced in reaching and photographing such sacred sites and some of those on such trips. Needless to say, the text is worth many a meditative read for a historic background into the rather new wilderness trekking in slot canyons of “fun-hogs” (not to be understood in a silly or narcissistic manner). Many of the best of the “fun-hogs” have been at the forefront of conservation and preservation, wilderness and wildness efforts.
The textual part of Searching for Tao Canyon is but the primer to the not to be missed photographs of various approaches to slot canyons and varied types of slot canyons. The colours, shapes and sizes of such canyons cannot but hold the curious for moments and hours, the wonderment within seeking such places of rare and often hidden bounties of nature. Gratefully so, the authors decided not to name or note the places in which some of the photographs were taken—tourists have predictable ways of destroying, in time, the very wildness they seek to see in their otherwise cabin’d, cribb’d and confin’d urban existence.
The language of “Tao” was appropriately chosen as the title for this masterpiece of sorts, the Tao being the metaphor for the way and “that which is”—searching for the Tao is as much about being still, not searching, quiet enough to see what is not often seen. But, such an approach does also involve work to get to places where the hidden becomes revealed to the ardent and committed searcher and seeker. Both the written text and amply illustrated photographs illuminate such realities again and again. It is impossible to, in many ways, put this genius and pages turner of a book down—each lavish page is a portal into mysterious and often missed secrets of the rocks and rivers, weather and wildness. Each page can hold the attentive reader for rapt moments of invitational insight. Photographs of rappelling down into narrow canyon depths, mixed light playing off rocks, animals that dwell in such confines, narrow ledges to straddle, night skies and brilliant blue skies above, waterfalls and naked dives, showers and simple food in canyons all tell their compelling visual tale.
The “Contents” of Searching for Tao Canyon (fast moving text by Jeremy Schmidt) are divided into five nicely shaped sections: 1) Dedication: Art Twomey, 2) Preface: Heads Up, Fellow Desert Rats, 3) In the Jaw of the Dragon, 4) Tao Canyon and 5) Epilogue. Each of the accessible and readable sections are short and the reader cannot but be keen to know much more about such slot canyon grails that offer such superb photographs.Searching for Tao Canyon is brought to a close with two short pages on “Books We Like” and “Environmental Organizations”—merely entrees but worth the primer.
There can be no doubt that in the last decade plus canyoneering and slot canyon trekking have become more prominent. Searching for Tao Canyon offers an informed, insightful and engaged way into how to truly seek, in a sustainable way, the ever elusive Tao that often remains hidden both in slot canyons and the slot canyons of the soul and life itself. Many are the books published each year and few are the books that remain near and dear to that which remains—Searching for Tao Canyon definitely and decidedly remains in the latter class far from the transience of the former class—a must buy for soul and sanity.
Ron Dart
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