PRESTON WALKER
(Ed. note: While soliciting comments on his
article from the late Preston Walker's friends,
the author received the following letter:
Thank you so much for the wonderful paper
on my old friend, Pres. I knew him very
well and went with him on several trips, In
fact, he and I used to have contests as to who
codd row the boat the fastest and he usually won.
It was thoughtful of you to do this and I
sincerely appreciate it.
Sincerely,
Barry Goldwater)
The West, and our whitewater sport,
lost another of its pioneer river men
with the death last year (May 28, 1971) of
Preston Walker, publisher of The Daily
Sentinel of Grand Junction, Colorado.
He died at the oars of his raft, and on
his own river-the Dolores-in southwestern
Colorado. He and three companions
had put in early that morning
at the head of the lower canyon,
about ten miles below Gateway. They
were in two ten-man rafts, and had
planned a one-day trip down to the
Colorado, mostly to observe nesting
geese. Pres was setting up a wildlife
sanctuary near his home outside Grand
Junction. After a mile or so, Pres and
his companion ran Beaver Creek rapids-
it was fast cold water from the
Spring runoff-and while rowing his
raft through the slack water below,
Pres collapsed. Efforts as resuscitation failed.
Pres was widely known and respected
in publishing, business, and
political circles in the Rocky Mountain
West, but was not much publicized
as a river runner-he would have been
the last to blow his own horn. His
whitewater career reached back to the
1930s, and included considerable time
as boatman, friend, and alter ego to
Norm Nevills, the pioneer boatman of
the San Juan River, before the latter's
death in the crash of his light plane
in 1949. In those days Pres was said
to have more whitewater mileage behind
him than anyone else in the country.
His last San Juan trip, a sentimental
journey made just before the
Glen Canyon Dam destroyed the lower
canyon, was his eighteenth.
Like Nevills, Pres was not physically
a large man, but both burned with an
adventurous spirit and a huge delight
in the rivers and canyons of the West.
Once he and Nevills, each alone in one
of Nevills' San Juan semi-cataract
boats, ran Gypsum Creek rapids, just
above Mexican Hat, in the dark. Nevills
landed safely below, then kept lighting
kitchen matches to guide Pres through,
roaring directions well lubricated with
profanity in his famous "river voice."
o Pres' responses can well be imagined
by those who knew him.
Again, the two of them made a winter
run down the San Juan (December
9 1941) with ice cakes competing with
their boats in the rapids, feet frozen
into the bilge water, and bonfires every
few miles to thaw out. These two inspired
zanies did this just because John
Wetherill, the trader at Kayenta, had
insisted to them that the river could
not be run in winter.
Pres also made an early Grand Canyon
run with Nevills, but one of his
finest exploits was on the Snake, where
he helped Nevills run a party of thirteen
through Hell's Canyon just after
the war. All rode in San Juan boats,
except for Pres, who somehow was
elected to navigate an open skiff which
Nevills had used on the San Juan. He
managed beautifully with this totally
unsuitable craft, thanks to his skill in
heavy water. After a capsize in Buck
Creek rapids, he managed to regain his
boat, recover the oars, and somehow
get through. He is probably the only
man to run Hell's Canyon in an open boat.
But it is the Dolores which was his
last and perhaps best favorite, and it
must be regarded as his personal river.
The first of several runs he made was
on the high Spring waters of 1948. It
included the entire length of the canyons
below the town of Dolores and
on to Moab, and must be counted as
a first descent. He took three others
along in his own San Juan boat, the
Rainbow Trail (which he also entered
in the first Arkansas River Race the
next year). It was a remarkable per-
formance - an expert West German
kayak man of vast European experience
ran the upper canyon solo in 1964,
and rated the chief rapids, "Old Snaggletooth,"
as Grade VI. He described
it as the most rugged he had ever seen
-and he had run the Grand Canyon
solo in a kayak that same season.
Pres was an extraordinary man, full
of humanity. He had great courage, and
great pleasure in doing; and this was
combined with a sensitivity and good
will towards his fellow man, and a
keen enjoyment of the natural world
around him, to an extraordinary degree.
A man of wide experience, he was
always downright pleased to be able
to share his knowledge, his rewards,
and his enjoyment with his friends. He
did much for river running. - tcb
AMERICAN WHITEWATER, Summer 1972
 Found at http://www.americanwhitewater.org/resources/journal/issues/1972_2.pdf
-Jake Lamkins
(2/19/06)