Conundrum Press

Comrades on the Colca: A Race for Adventure and Incan Treasure in One of the World’s Last Unexplored Canyons

August 3rd, 2016  |  Published in Eugene Buchanan, New Releases, Non-fiction

Join Eugene Buchanan, author of Brothers on the Bashkaus, in his latest tale of travel and adventure. This time he is in South America with a team of Polish explorers on a first descent down the Cruz del Condor section of Peru’s Colca Canyon, the deepest gorge in the world.

Negotiating everything from unrunnable cascades to Incan mummy-filled caves and skin-bubbling plants, en route they discover not only the camaraderie needed to survive but a rival Polish team bent on beating them to the expedition plum.

Interspersed with tales of Incan history, legends of treasure hunting, and other South American exploits, Comrades on the Colca plunges the reader into a gripping adventure travel narrative that will have the reader reaching for a paddle and plane ticket to wilds of Peru.

About the Author:

A former reporter for the Denver Business Journal and 14-year editor-in-chief of Paddler magazine, Eugene Buchanan has written about the outdoors for more than 25 years, from covering the X Games for ESPN.com to working for NBC at the Beijing Olympics. A Business/Economics graduate of Colorado College, where he captained his NCAA lacrosse team, the former ski patrol, kayak instructor and sea kayak and raft guide also enjoys a successful freelance career, with articles published in the New York Times, Men’s Journal, Sports Afield, Outside, National Geographic Adventure, Adventure Journal, Skiing, Ski, Powder, Backcountry, 5280, Bike, Mountain Bike and other publications. A member of New York’s prestigious Explorer’s Club, he is also the founder of Paddling Life (www.paddlinglife.net), and a Contributing Editor for Powder and Canoe & Kayak magazines. An avid adventurer with several first descents to his credit, Buchanan’s passion for traveling, writing and paddling has taken him to more than 30 countries on six of the seven continents. A contributor to Men’s Journal’s The Great Life anthology, his first stand-alone book, Brothers on the Bashkaus, was released by Fulcrum Publishing in 2008. His second book, Outdoor Parents, Outdoor Kids, a winner of the Living Now Book Awards, was released by Heliconia Press in 2010. He lives with his wife, Denise, and two daughters, Brooke, 16, and Casey, 13, in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, just a block away from the Yampa River.

Preorder Comrades on the Colca here (Release date: October 18, 2016).

Advance Praise:

“Eugene Buchanan has long had a reputation as a fearless adventurer willing to go anywhere in search of wild water. But with Comrades on the Colca, set at the bottom of the world’s deepest gorge in the mighty heart of Peru, Buchanan has topped himself. Here is a rip-roaring adventure, packed with weird legends, peopled with obsessive characters, and shot through with ambitions as big and unbridled as the great river that spills through this crazy, picaresque tale.” —Hampton Sides, New York Times bestselling author of Blood and Thunder, In the Kingdom of Ice, and Ghost Soldiers

“It’s crazy, zany, and full of fun. High adventure, yes, but in the broadest sense of the word, mixing the physical adventure of a first descent into the deepest canyon of the world with a quest for gold, a race to the finish, and more wacko characters than you can stuff into a packraft.” —Jon Turk, author of Crocodiles and Ice: A Journey into Deep Wild

“Nobody can write about rivers like Eugene Buchanan. He is one of the very few adventurer-writers who can take you—with fast paced, descriptive prose—down into the gorges where no modern man has ever been. Where the lure of Incan gold is as compelling as unexplored territory. Buchanan weaves the history and the exciting story of a contemporary expedition with the clean skill of an expert kayaker running a life or death drop. And he has earned every page, with his paddle and his pen.” —Peter Heller, author of The Dog Stars, The Painter, Hell or High Water and Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave

“These kind of adventure narratives too often descend into trip reports that simply convey the physical and mental drudgery suffered by the protagonist, with details of hunger, sleepless nights and endless risk. Not Buchanan’s Comrades on the Colca. His rich flashbacks to previous paddling adventures, like a fatality on the Rio Negro in Colombia, an exploratory mission on Ecuador’s Rio Quitos, and an ant-addled, jaguar-stalked, flood-ravaged descent of Peru’s Rio Tambopata—add penetrating perspective to his tale, lending it a depth that makes it an instant classic among legendary paddle tomes.” —Jason Blevins, The Denver Post

“For devotees of over-the-top, no-hold-barred whitewater adventure, Eugene Buchanan’s Brothers on the Bashkaus has long been the gold standard when it comes to a truly epic river story. But with Comrades on the Colca, Buchanan appears to have outdone even himself (which is no mean feat). Hang on tight and brace for the ride of a lifetime.” —Kevin Fedarko, author of The Emerald Mile

“For a river-runner, Peru’s Colca Canyon – twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, far narrower, more technical and remote—is the Ultimate Challenge. Eugene Buchanan’s account of not just running the Colca but several more wild South American descents is a wild-river classic, worthy of every canyon corner and page turn. —Jon Bowermaster, National Geographic adventurer

“From one of the greatest outdoor writers, a terrific story of adventure and resilience.” —Porter Fox, author of DEEP: The Story of Skiing and the Future of Snow

Preorder Comrades on the Colca from Conundrum Press or any bookstore. Remember to #readlocal and #buylocal!

Also available at:
Barnes and Noble
Amazon

$14.99
5.5×8.5, trade paperback
254 pages
Travel/Sports

ISBN: 978-1-942280-35-4

Pub Date: October 18, 2016
Published by Conundrum Press
Distributed by Independent Publishers Group

For publicity information, contact:

Stephen McConnell
P.O. Box 1353
Golden, CO 80402
steve@conundrum-press.com

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