When Harvey Butchart arrived in Flagstaff, Arizona from Iowa just after the end of World War II, he had only seen pictures of the Grand Canyon in books. Soon, he made his first trip there and was hooked. For 40 years, the mathematics professor from NAU, later called the "undisputed king of extreme and obsessive Grand Canyon hiking" by Backpacker Magazine, hiked more than 12,000 miles into remote and previously uncharted Canyon territory recording his routes on detailed maps and in journal entries. From Lee's Ferry to Lake Mead, Harvey Butchart was credited with finding more than 116 new approaches to the Colorado River and with summiting 83 of the 138 named peaks in the Canyon, 35 of those being first ascents. In Grand Canyon Treks, Butchart shares his pioneering explorations with entirely new generations of Grand Canyon adventurers.
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