New Book! by Davy Crockett. Grand Canyon Rim to Rim History. 258 pages, 400+ photos, paperback, or Kindle. Available on Amazon (click here)
Hike or run across the Grand Canyon rim to rim. This book tells a 130-year story of many of the early crossers in their own words. It also covers the creation of the trails, bridges, Phantom Ranch, and the water pipeline, the things that are seen during a rim-to-rim journey. These stories will help the reader have a deeper appreciation for the inner Grand Canyon, and for those who helped make it available for us to enjoy.
When this history story starts in 1890, there was no Grand Canyon Village, no Phantom Ranch, and the groomed trails did not exist. There were only a few visitors to either rim because of the lack of roads. Step back in time, to experience the Canyon through the words of those who came before us, those who made our modern Canyon rim crossings possible.
This book has been in the works for multiple years. The author scoured through thousands of Grand Canyon newspaper articles and documents. Included are many fun stories, the airplane that landed near Indian Garden, the man who rode his bike rim-to-rim with permission by the Park. The group of bikers who tried to ride rim-to-rim during a government shutdown. The story of Theodore Roosevelt crossing to hunt mountain lions on the North Rim (hundreds roamed the rim). The original trail that required 94 creek-crossings. The original “Devil’s Corkscrew” section that terrified early descenders, with directions so you can try it too.
On a summer morning in 1883 in midtown Manhattan, New York City, a young boy ran down 34th Street, getting the attention of a policeman. He cried out, “A man has killed some folks.” Officer John Hughes ran with the boy to a new saloon that recently opened. There he saw a man, pale, and trembling. He found out that the man was George Noremac, one of the most famous ultrarunners/pedestrians in the country.
Dan Brannen (1953-) of Morristown, New Jersey, has made a lifetime contribution to ultrarunning and the running sport in general. His dedicated work, mostly from behind the scenes, helped to establish world and national ultrarunning championships. His efforts have affected thousands of ultrarunners in America and around the globe for decades. Dan was inducted into the American Ultrarunning Hall of Fame in 2022.
This biography also presents twenty-three years (1879-1902) of the amazing pedestrian era history as experienced by Hart when ultradistance running was the most popular spectator sport in the country. He competed in at least 110 ultras, including eleven in Madison Square Garden, where he set a world record, running 565 miles in six days in front of tens of thousands of spectators and wagerers. During his running career, he won the equivalent of $3.5 million in today’s value and lost it all.
Ultrarunners/Pedestrians of the late 1800s were a unique breed of determined and aggressive individuals who were in the sport primarily trying to cash in on the huge prize money potential and to get their names in the newspapers as “world champions.” They would gladly endure the torture of running hundreds of miles in a week for a perceived easy way to earn life-changing money. Such opportunities obviously attracted individuals that weren’t necessarily the most outstanding citizens and had run-ins with the law. But the law and others at times wanted to bring down the sport and the athletes, and thus confrontations occurred.
Pam Reed, age 61 in 2022, from Jackson Wyoming, and Scottsdale, Arizona, is a 
The strange story of ultrarunner Richard Lacouse has never been told before. Piecing together his unusual life story was an adventure in itself. He was once a famous, elite, ultrarunner/pedestrian from Boston during the late 19th century, one of the most prolific six-day pedestrians during the early years of the sport.
With the great success of ultrarunning (known as pedestrianism) in the 1880s, and the millions of dollars of legal wagering involved, corruption raised its ugly head in the sport. “Match Fixing,” was the most common form of corruption used. This practice made it possible for bookmakers to maximize their profits. Sports scholar Mike Huggins wrote, “The fixing of sports events has a history that is probably as old as organized sport. Persons off the field directed match fixing to make often illegal financial gains using a mixture of legal and illegal sports betting platforms, sharing some of that profit with those connected to the sport who executed the fix on the field.”