Colin Fletcher

Although his route spans only a little more than one-third the length of Grand Canyon, Fletcher was only the second person to complete this section and the first to accomplish the feat "in one go"  – as chronicled in his bestselling 1968 memoir The Man Who Walked Through Time.

Born in Cardiff, Wales, on 14 March 1922, Fletcher was educated in England and served six years in the Royal Marine Commandos during World War II.

The book covered such topics as technique, the journey itself, and reflections which included the concept, after weeks of walking, of achieving a state of mentally "merging" with the place that one is visiting.

[2] Fletcher's book is distinguished by its encyclopedic treatment of the technique and equipment of wilderness travel, as well as by what critics and readers have praised as its rousing humor and elegant, vigorous prose.

In the early 1970s, Fletcher returned to Kenya's Serengeti Plain, and Great Rift Valley for a year, an experience he recounted in The Winds of Mara, published in 1973.

He was publicity-shy,[citation needed] rarely responding to letters or interview requests, although always willing to incorporate reader feedback into revised editions of The Complete Walker.

According to published obituaries, Fletcher died on 12 June 2007 in Monterey, California, as a result of complications from a head injury sustained from being hit by the car six years earlier.

[2] Through his writings Fletcher "inspired a generation of young Americans to take up backpacking as means of filling a spiritual void,"[4] and to escape from the confusion of Vietnam-era America:"After Vietnam, I was trying to figure out what to do with my life.