Ed Abbey had joined a Colorado River trip I'd guided in summer 1975, soon after he'd written The Monkey Wrench Gang (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 1975). The book was about to hit the shelves and would become a literary and cultural phenomenon. He didn't reveal anything about the Gang, and we didn't ask, but as we floated Cataract, he'd already orchestrated the lives and acts of Hayduke and Seldom Seen and Bonnie and Doc. [...]