Sunk Without A Sound

by Alpen

Product Description

Sunk Without A Sound/b>by Brad DimockLike The Perfect Storm on a whitewater river, or Into the Wild in the depths of Grand Canyon, this adventure/mystery/biography details the true story of Glen and Bessie Hyde, who vanished on their 1928 honeymoon river trip through Grand Canyon. When they did not appear at journey's end, Glen's father launched an exhaustive search of Grand Canyon. Although the boat was soon found upright and fully loaded, no trace of the honeymooners was ever found. They had vanished from the face of the earth. Or had they?In the fall of 1971, an elderly widow joined a Grand Canyon rafting tour. Toward the end of the trip she announced she was Bessie Hyde, and that she had killed her husband, hiked out and started life anew. In 1976 a skeleton with a bullet in the skull was found at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Its size, age, and accoutrements all looked suspiciously like Glen Hyde's. In the following twenty years, yet another man and woman came to light, each surrounded by bizarre coincidences and suspected by some to be Glen or Bessie Hyde.Flagstaff, Arizona author Brad Dimock spent two years searching for the truth behind the Hyde mystery, digging through archives, traversing the continent, following each clue and lead to its end-even going to the extreme of replicating the Hydes' archaic scow and taking his own bride on a harrowing trip through Grand Canyon. His profusely illustrated book, Sunk Without a Sound, The Tragic Colorado River Honeymoon of Glen and Bessie Hyde, details the search and the findings in a riveting, often humorous style. Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award and the Arizona Highways Nonfiction Book Award.Dimock, who spent more than twenty-five years as an international whitewater guide, spins a yarn as only someone who has stood around a thousand campfires can. His 1998 collaboration, The Doing of the Thing: The Brief, Brilliant Whitewater Career of Buzz Holmstrom, won the National Outdoor Book Award.

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• ASIN: B001HSJWFS
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)

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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Debunking the myths..., November 11, 2002

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sunk Without a Sound : The Tragic Colorado River Honeymoon of Glen and Bessie Hyde (Paperback)

Outrageous adventures that capture the imagination, like Lindberg's trans-Atlantic flight, often personify the American spirit, especially in the youth of a new century. But the 1928 honeymoon excursion down the rapids of the Grand Canyon by Glen and Bessie Hyde ended in tragedy, their bodies never recovered, the whole trip shrouded in mystery. This book sets out to tell their story with as many facts as are available, recount the rescue efforts and determine some answers after all these years of speculation.

After reading Grand Ambition, a novel by Lisa Michael's, about the couple's fateful honeymoon, I was curious to know more of the details and explore the lore surrounding the disappearance of Bessie and Glen. Author Dimock gathers what few pertinent facts are available and reconstructs the Hyde's journey, physically experiencing parts of it himself. He even builds a replica of their craft, hoping to ascertain what happened as they moved from one dangerous whitewater course to another. Literally, only speculation remains, because their flat-bottomed scow was found drifting, intact and packed with provisions with no evidence of the bodies. Did they die, or escape? The author also carefully goes over each step of the rescue party's unsuccessful search. As an extra service to the reader, he spends some time debunking the many urban legends that have sprung up over the years, passed from campfire to campfire, further clouding the truth.

The most satisfying part of this book is Dimock's exacting concentration on each phase of the journey given the modernization of river rafting techniques and experience. Easy answers are simply not acceptable to Dimock, and he unfailingly covers every possible situation in the attempt to arrive at a feasible conclusion. In his conscientious writing, this author postulates some scenarios that set my mind at rest. When he fits the pieces of the puzzle together, it's as likely a fit as will be found at this time. And I was relieved to put aside those rumors and innuendoes told with a broad wink, because I would like to think of this couple in peace after such a short and harrowing twist of fate.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Amazing Book With Sweepage!, September 14, 2001

By 

Bruce Crocker "agnostictrickster" (Whittier, California United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sunk Without a Sound : The Tragic Colorado River Honeymoon of Glen and Bessie Hyde (Paperback)

I'm no expert about the Grand Canyon or whitewater rafting - I've visited the canyon about 5 times over the last 30 years, spending 6 days on a spring break backcountry hike on one of the trips, and I've been on one float trip down the San Juan River [Bluff to 'Lake Foul'] on the spring break before or after the canyon hike - so I'm reviewing Sunk Without A Sound by Brad Dimock as an interested and knowledgable layperson. This book is an amazing adventure story, a gripping mystery, a brave piece of experimental historical investigation, the end product of extensive research, and an extremely rational and fair reading of the available evidence.

The book is a tapestry of stories sewn together with several strong threads. The main thread is the story of the failed [?] honeymoon Colorado River trip of Glen and Bessie Hyde in 1928 and the subsequent attempts to find a solution to their disappearance. It is the story of RC Hyde, Glen's father, and his obsessive, but loving, attempts to find his son and his daughter-in-law. It is the story of author Brad Dimock and his wife, Jeri Ledbetter, and their enlightening version of the original Hyde trip [they recreated the original journey in a version of the original sweep scow]. Dimock ties all these pieces together in one seamless piece of non-fiction.

I enjoyed the book immensely, especially the fact that Dimock told the most reasonable story that the research and the evidence supported. I recommend you take a ride throught the twists, the turns, and the rapids of this excellent book.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an exceptionally good read, March 10, 2001

By 

Shane Murphy (Scottsdale, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sunk Without a Sound : The Tragic Colorado River Honeymoon of Glen and Bessie Hyde (Hardcover)

It's obvious that Dimock has done his homework in researching and writing this superbly crafted book detailing the disappearance of Glenn and Bessie Hyde, the 'honeymoon couple' who attempted a run through Grand Canyon in their sweep scow--Rain-in-the-Face--during 1928. Here we find three great stories packed concisely into one exceptionally good book. It is part mystery novel, part an historical account replete with colorful and obscure Grand Canyon characters, and part the telling of Dimock's own run down the Colorado River in the sweep scow he built to recreate the Hyde's histroic trip. SUNK WITHOUT A SOUND is also, and more importantly, a thorough biography of the life and times of Glen and Bessie Hyde. Their family members appear in startling detail, their history is laid out in a colorfully woven chronology, and their ultimate end is surmised in vivid fashion. Beyond that, the many folk tales surrounding their disappearance are debunked and kindly dismissed with considerable research. Illustrated with maps, diagrams, and an interesting variety of historic Grand Canyon and Hyde family photos, Dimock ultimely takes the reader on a whitewater trip not to be forgotten. Dimock's first book, THE DOING OF THE THING, a biography of riverman Buzz Holmstrom, won the National Outdoor Book Award in 1998. However impressive that my be, SUNK WITHOUT A SOUND is, obviously, destined for much higher accolades.

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