The Lost River:
A Memoir of Life, Death and Transformation on Wild Water
By Richard Bangs
Sierra Club Books, $25
ISBN 157805026X

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Author Richard Bangs' latest book The Lost River is a true grit recollection of his years spent in the 1970s exploring some the most remote and unrafted rivers of Ethiopia's hectic interior.

As much as the book recalls the spectacular and dangerous scenery of the wild rivers, it also explores the reasons why a group of adventure infatuated friends would jump at every chance to take on the challenge of another potentially deadly trip into virtually uncharted waters, no matter what the costs.

Bangs, a lifetime exploratory rafter and guide who helped to organize a successful global adventure travel company made up of a network of accomplished guides, shares his perspective on the river as a source of beauty, a taker of life and a reason for living after a series of tragedies strike those closest to him.

The Lost River travels the same waters as Deliverance, Heart of Darkness and The African Queen with plenty of descriptions of the rivers' inhabitants like raft-chomping hippos, flesh eating alligators, electric catfish and testicle hunting warriors prone to appear on remote river banks and watch silently as the rafts glide by, much to the author's relief.

As each trip into the unknown begins, Bangs describes the intense excitement felt by each rafter as the river whisks them into a world of its own. There is plenty of portaging, patching and sleeping on muddy embankments and naturally relationships are strained and strengthened along the way.

Bangs presents both the triumphs and the catastrophes of running white water especially in a politically volatile climate under the crumbling rule of Emperor Haille Selassie, the remoteness of the rivers and the fragility of the trips as boats, equipment and funding are lost, plans are dashed or put on hold for years.

Over two decades after the 1970s explorations, Bangs and a group of surviving rafters of the early trips return to Africa to run the big one - the unrun Tezeke. The Lost River offers a full itinerary for the armchair adventurer or amateur rafter seeking an inside look at the evolution of a generation of individuals who chose to seek adventure on a continuous basis.