Roy Webb tells this tale and scores of others in this biography of pre-eminent riverman Bus Hatch. The story of Bus Hatch is actually a collection of stories--an intricate, interwoven tale about men and rivers. More than any other outdoor sport, river running has an extensive oral tradition that's usually passed on while shooting the bull around a riverside campfire. It's a story without end.
The founder of Hatch River Expeditions, Bus Hatch started running western rivers in the early 1930s before the great dams, government control, and commercial river running. Literally thousands of people got their first glimpse of the wonder, beauty, and excitement of a river canyon while floating with Bus. And as they floated, they heard the stories...
This updated edition of Roy Webb's 1989 privately published biography contains new chapters, pictures, and a foreword by Brad Dimock
Roy Webb has spent the last three decades researching, hiking, exploring, and running the length of the Green and Colorado Rivers in anything that floats--rafts, canoes, dories, sportyaks, duckies, even inner tubes.
A dedicated river historian, Webb has also worked as an archivist, swamper, caretaker, writer, consultant, and story teller.
If there was a single person responsible for creating the modern commercial river trip in the Southwest, it would be Robert Raphael Hatch, better known simply as Bus.
Roy Webb is an experienced boatman and brings an insider's voice and authority to his descriptions of the river and the culture that has developed around it. Much of the book is based on extensive interviews with Bus's family, coworkers, and friends, which gives the accounts a an intimate and detailed view of both the man and his exploits. Extremely readable and often light-hearted, it is a book that Bus himself would have enjoyed and every serious Grand Canyon historian or river rat should own.
Eric Berg
Boatman's Quarterly Review
On a quiet July afternoon in 1936, young Blackie Marshall stood on a deserted bridge over the Salmon River contemplating suicide. Floating down the Salmon to forget his troubles, he had wrecked his canoe in the first rapid. His fiancee had left him, married another man. Life didn't seem worth living anymore. Bus Hatch was fishing along the river when he happened upon Blackie, heard the young man's tale of woe, and took him back to camp for supper. Sitting around the fire, Bus and companions offered Blackie a place on their crew for a descent of the Salmon River. "Come go with us," they said, "and we'll kill you for nothing."
