Colin Fletcher (1922–2007) was born in Wales and educated in England. He moved to California in 1956 after serving in the Royal Marines, farming in Kenya, surveying in Zimbabwe, and prospecting in northern and western Canada. He is the first man to have walked the length of Grand Canyon National Park within the canyon’s rim. He is the author of numerous books on walking and the outdoors, including The Thousand-Mile Summer, The Man Who Walked Through Time, River, The Secret Worlds of Colin Fletcher, and three previous editions of The Complete Walker.