Sunk Without a Sound: The Tragic Colorado River Honeymoon of Glen and Bessie Hyde

by Brad Dimock

Book Overview

The mystery of Glen and Bessie Hyde is whitewater navigation's equivalent to Mallory and Irvine's disappearance on Everest in 1924. Just four years later in October 1928, the Hydes, a bright,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1892327988
• ISBN13: 9781892327987
• Release Date: February 2001
• Publisher: Fretwater Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Debunking the myths...

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.

An Amazing Book With Sweepage!

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.

The Grand Canyon is full of mysteries.

The Grand Canyon is full of mysteries, including the 1928 disappearance of Glen and Bessie Hyde. While on their honeymoon in October 1928, the couple "launched a crudely built sweep scow in Green River, Utah. They wound through Labyrinth and Stillwater Canyons, and navigated the rapids of Cataract Canyon. They drifted on through the calm waters of Glen Canyon, and eighty-six miles into the whitewater of Grand Canyon. They made record time. The Hydes climbed the canyon rim at Grand Canyon Village, talked to the press, resupplied, and returned to their scow. They were seen the next day at Hermit Rapid, heading downstream into the gloom of early winter darkness. Their scow was found a month later, near the end of Grand Canyon, upright, intact, and with all gear aboard. Glen and Bessie were never seen again" (pp. 4-5). And "you haven't heard the half of it," Brad Dimock says, grinning (p. 203). I recently listened to Dimock read from this well-researched book in Tempe, Arizona. He is a seasoned river runner, and an "aspiring" Flagstaff hermit. His writing is full of his good-natured personality.Placing the Hyde mystery in its historical context, Dimock notes it was a time of great adventures. John Wesley Powell was the first to travel the Colorado River (calling it "The Great Unknown"), just sixty years before Glen and Bessie attempted to run the River in 1928. In June 1924, George Mallory attempted to summit Mount Everest. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis nonstop across the Atlantic. In June 1928, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to cross the Atlantic by airplane. Glen Hyde was a "tall, slender Idaho farm boy," and Bessie Hyde was a bit Bohemian, "short, demure, a poet, and not really that excited about the boat trip" (p. 11). They were "young, intelligent and progressive" (p. 54). Through photographs and his well-crafted prose, Dimock brings the newlyweds to life in his book. Glen and Bessie were "a tall, angular man and a delicate, fine-featured woman aboard a course and savage scow," he writes. "They blasted through the waves and slipped downstream into the black schist gorge" (p. 93), always without life preservers (p. 77).Dimock's book is actually three stories that flow into one. In addition to the mystery of Glenn and Bessie Hyde's honeymoon trip down the Colorado River, Dimock follows Rollin C. Hyde's search for his missing son, a search that ruined him financially. Dimock also describes his own journey in a scow down the deep, dark, rocky River, a trip he took with his wife in an attempt to solve the mystery of the Hyde's "lost honeymoon trip down the Colorado" (p. 4). But for those expecting Dimock to conclusively solve the mystery of Glen and Bessie Hyde's Grand Canyon disappearance, it should be noted that the Grand Canyon is known and respected for its mysteries, some of them 1.9 billion years old, its beauty, and its profound silence.G. Merritt

the stuff campfire tales are made of.....

I first heard about Glen and Bessie Hyde from a friend who runs the river each summer. They are icons and legends of Grand Canyon lore with the unfortunate tale of their tragic honeymoon trip down the river. Brad Dimock has not only captured the essence of their story, but tells it with empathy and great attention to detail. The book weaves three stories into one great piece: the background and travels of Glen and Bessie, the relentless search by Glen's father, and Dimock's own trip down the river in a similar craft. Each chapter is headed with one of Bessie's poems, incredibly brief and in many ways, prophetic of her untimely disappearance. These brief glimpses into her mind and heart are timeless and profound. We come to know Glen and Bessie as complex individuals who ventured into an unknown arena.I had the opportunity to hear Dimock at Northern AZ University the week the book was released... he was mesmerizing as he recounted his impecible research into the story. In spite of being a self-proclaimed "hermit in training," he brought the story, in all its versions, into a new and insightful realm. Bob Emerson, nephew of Glen Hyde, was in the audience, and seemed moved by the stirring tribute that Dimock provided.The world will never know what really happened to Glen and Bessie, but Dimock seems to ask us to let them rest, and honor their memory. The river holds her own mystique, and this is one legend that can be told and retold as part of her lore.

an exceptionally good read

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.