The Green River, the most significant tributary of the Colorado River, runs 730 miles from the glaciers of Wyoming to the desert canyons of Utah. Over its course it meanders through ranches, cities, national parks, endangered fish habitats, and some of the most significant natural gas fields in the country, as it provides water for 33 million people. Stopped up by dams, slaked off by irrigation, and dried up by cities, the Green is crucial, overused, and at risk, now more than ever.
Fights over the river's water, and what's going to happen to it in the future, are longstanding, intractable, and only getting worse as the west gets hotter and drier and more people depend on the river with each passing year. As a former raft guide and an environmental reporter, Heather Hansman knew these fights were happening, but she felt driven to see them from a different perspective—from the river itself. So she set out on a journey, in a one-person inflatable pack raft, to paddle the river from source to confluence and see what the experience might teach her. Mixing lyrical accounts of quiet paddling through breathtaking beauty with nights spent camping solo and lively discussions with farmers, city officials, and other people met along the way, Downriver is the story of that journey, a foray into the present—and future—of water in the west.
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Heather Hansman is an award-winning freelance writer and a former editor at both Powder and Skiing magazines. She’s Outside magazine’s environmental columnist and a contributing editor at Backcountry magazine. Her work has been included in The Best American Essays 2015. She once won a bag of pasta in an Italian big-mountain-skiing contest (tenth place out of eleven women). She lives in Seattle, Washington.
Allyson Ryan is an Earphones Award–winning voice actress who can be heard in commercials, promos, animation, and audiobooks. She has extensive experience on stage and television. In New York, she acted in and directed more than thirty plays. Her television credits include roles on Eleventh Hour, Law & Order, and One Life to Live. She has also appeared as “Mom” in several television commercials. Advertising Age nominated her for a Bobby Award in the best actress category for her work as the Duracell mom.