Description: With its headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park and flowing down Poudre Canyon, through Fort Collins, and out to the South Platte River near Greeley, the Cache La Poudre is the Front Range's last free-flowing river. The Poudre, however, is deeply threatened. New dams and diversions are planned upstream and downstream and on several of the Poudre's tributaries.

In the Fall of 2005, we solictied essays, stories, and poems to celebrate the Cache La Poudre River. We received dozens of exceptional pieces, and we are proud to say that Pulse of the River is an exceptional book. Thirty Colorado writers and poets have contributed personal, unique stories that celebrate the Poudre. The book has four sections: "Maybe I'm in Love," "A Kind of Vertigo," "Spiral of Our Life," and "Our Bodies are Rivers," each exploring a poignant aspect of the Poudre. We hope Pulse of the River will help galvanize public sentiment about the beauty and necessity of the Poudre.


Review Quotes:
This river is loved by as many people—many who recreate, many who just find renewal in the smells and sights and sounds of wild-running water—as any river I know. “The Poudre” (I’ve been lucky to hike and fish it for 35 years) now faces all the West’s classic wrecking forces—dams, diversions, and plain neglect—and they can ruin this life force before we know it. Read Pulse of the River and let these writers take you to their river. My guess it that it will fuel a passion to honor a magical place that needs and deserves our help.
-- Charles Wilkinson

Gary Wockner and Laura Pritchett have skillfully gathered these essays and poems and sent them purling downstream to readers, in hopes that all of us will learn to love this threatened river enough to save it. The river’s pulse traces the spiral of our lives and reminds us that “our bodies are rivers”—and that when we kill the rivers in our home landscapes, we extinguish a part of ourselves.
-- Stephen Trimble

This is a book with all the blessed diversity of the Cache la Poudre itself, moving through all the wildlands and farmlands, uplands and flatlands of nature and human nature conjoined.
-- George Sibley

This is a book about love. Love so charged with energy that it can carry us through hell or high water. Love so essential that it flows out of and through us with the force of the river of life, leaving us scoured, reshaped, re-born, connected again and again. Read this book carefully: it carries all of water's power to kill and heal.
-- Susan Tweit

Gary Wockner and Laura Pritchett have done it again. The battle to save what's left of the planet's natural environment will not be won at the nation-state level; it will, rather be won river by river, watershed by watershed, when people stand up and shout: We will not allow this! This book is such a statement.
-- M. John Fayhee

Events: Will be scheduled throughout the Fall of 2006 and into 2007 in Colorado.

Oct. 27th, Front Range Community College, Fort Collins. Readers: Blair Oliver, Kerri Mitchell, Gary Wockner.

Nov. 11th, 2:00pm, Tattered Cover (LODO), Denver. Readers: Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Lary Kleeman, Jack Martin, Steve Miles, Gary Wockner, Laura Pritchett. Click here for event info.

Dec. 1st. 7:00pm - 9:00pm. BOOK LAUNCH PARTY! New Belgium Brewery, Fort Collins.

Dec. 2nd, 1:00-3:00. Rist Canyon Festival, Bellvue. (booth and signing)

Jan. 13th, Barnes and Noble, Fort Collins.

Jan. 20th, Loveland Library, 1:00.

Royalties: from the sale of this book will be donated to Colorado Water Trust which works throughout Colorado to buy and preserve water for river conservation.

Purchasing: ISBN 1-55566-392-3. $17.00 AVAILABLE NOW at all bookstores, online and otherwise. The Matter Bookstore in Fort Collins always has a big stock. Available from AMAZON (click).

Press Kit: Interviews, event scheduling, review copies, etc. will be handled by Gary Wockner, Laura Pritchett, and Linda Doyle at Johnson Books. Please send an email.

Hi-resolution cover image, click here.

Publisher: Big Earth Publishing, Boulder, Colorado. (800) 258-5830.

Editors: Gary Wockner and Laura Pritchett.

Cover Photo: by Laura Katers, taken up Poudre Canyon.



Reprints: For reprint permission, contact the individual author or Gary Wockner.

Threats to the Poudre:

The Northern Integrated Supply Project (NISP)
Halligan Reservoir Expansion
Seaman Reservoir Expansion
Windy Gap Firming Project


What You Can Do:

Please visit: www.SaveThePoudre.org

Seven non-profit organizations are currently working to preserve the Poudre. You can join any of these groups, and work within that group for the Poudre's future. Friends of the Poudre, Sierra Club: Poudre Canyon Group, Poudre Paddlers, Citizen Planners: Fort Collins, Audubon Society: Fort Collins Chapter, Colorado Environmental Coalition, Wolverine Farm Publishing.