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The Colorado River
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The Colorado River: Chasing Water

Author Pete McBride, Foreword by Nick Paumgarten, Introduction by Kevin Fedarko

2024 National Outdoor Book Award Winner

Ten Best Photography Books of 2024, Smithsonian Magazine

In Association with Grand Canyon Conservancy and National Audubon Society.

Through photography and essays, this book is a celebration of one of America’s most valuable and iconic rivers and a warning demonstrating the river is a bellwether of overuse and climate change.

America’s Western water crisis is now newsworthy on a global level, and the Colorado River is in the crosshairs. The Colorado River is the most comprehensive look at this challenged resource that supplies drinking water to forty million Americans and supports five percent of the country’s GDP.

While acclaimed photographer Pete McBride has covered water worldwide and been dubbed a “freshwater hero” by National Geographic, he now brings us home to his deepest passion: saving his backyard river, the Colorado. For two decades, McBride has documented the Colorado River, from source to sea and always with a camera in hand.

Through McBride’s photography and his own words, as well as essays on climate change and river overuse, we witness the stark reality of our water crisis but also the remarkable beauty and resilience of this ephemeral source of life.

About The Author

Native Coloradan Pete McBride is a Sony Artisan of Light and has traveled on assignment to more than seventy-five countries for the National Geographic Society, Smithsonian, Google, and the Nature Conservancy. He has spoken on stages for TEDx, the World Economic Forum, Pixar, Nat Geo Live, and more. His books The Grand Canyon: Between River and Rim and Seeing Silence both won a National Outdoor Book Award.

Nick Paumgarten is an environmentalist and has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 2005.

Kevin Fedarko works as a part-time river guide in Grand Canyon National Park. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Emerald Mile.

  • Publish Date: March 26, 2024
  • Format: Hardcover
  • Category: Photography - Subjects & Themes - Landscapes
  • Publisher: Rizzoli
  • Trim Size: 13 x 10-1/2
  • Pages: 224
  • US Price: $60.00
  • CDN Price: $80.00
  • ISBN: 978-0-8478-9974-6
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Reviews

“2024 National Outdoor Book Award Winner. In this striking, large format book, photographer Pete McBride takes us down the Colorado River from its source to sea. With just the right amount of text and a whole lot of images, this book tells a story. The story is about the river’s beauty and its rugged canyons, of course, but the larger story told by McBride is how the river is used. With fifteen dams on its main stem and hundreds more on its tributaries, the river serves millions of people in the Southwest. McBride captures all of this by blending several forms of photography: aerial, landscape, and his trademark fine art. With instructive captions and stunning, full-page photography you’ll come away from this book with a better understanding of this great river of the West.” — National Outdoor Book Award

“The Ten Best Photography Books of 2024: These works are not just for casual readers—they are for those who seek to expand their horizons, enrich their lives, and connect with the world on a deeper level. Pete McBride’s The Colorado River: Chasing Water is a visually stunning and deeply personal exploration of water, its significance to life, and the environmental challenges it faces. A renowned photographer, filmmaker and activist through adventure, McBride spent over 15 years tracing the Colorado River from its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains to its dry end in Mexico. The book is a blend of striking imagery and thoughtful narrative, capturing not only the river’s vast landscapes but also the social and ecological issues contributing to its depletion.” — Smithsonian Magazine

“The Colorado-born photographer makes a stirring case for the preservation of an iconic American waterway—some 40 million citizens use its supply daily—battered by overuse and climate change, but still magnificent through his lens.” — The New York Times Book Review

"I’ve admired McBride’s Colorado river work for years. He captures the Colorado River’s iconic wonder and challenges with artistic imagery and sobering prose. Chasing Water is an epic collection of art that cries for awareness and conservation.” — Jimmy Chin, Oscar-winning filmmaker, photographer

“A poignant tribute to the beauty of the American Southwest, McBride’s Chasing Water is his best work yet. His iconic imagery captures the plight and resilience of the Colorado River, urging each of us to stand for its protection.” — Paul Nicklen, Co-founder and Lead Storyteller Sealegacy

“As a fellow conservationist and fan of McBride's work, I cannot stress enough the importance of this book. Chasing Water boldly confronts the Colorado River’s troubled history of misuse, uncovering hope and beauty in America’s most beloved and over-litigated river.” — Cristina Mittermeier, Co-founder and Lead Storyteller Sealegacy

“McBride’s masterpiece Colorado River book communicates the beauty, the heartbreak, and the hope for the river in a way that only his pictures can. It is really powerful.” — Jennifer Pitt, Audubon's Colorado River Program Director

Author Bookshelf: Pete McBride

Seeing Silence
The Grand Canyon: Between River and Rim

Author Bookshelf: Kevin Fedarko

The Grand Canyon: Between River and Rim