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Colin Fletcher
Summary
Colin Fletcher (14 March 1922 – 12 June 2007) was a pioneering backpacker and writer.
In 1963, Fletcher walked the length of that portion of Grand Canyon contained within the 1963 boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park. 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. Fletcher obtained the route information critical for successfully completing his epic trip from the godfather of Grand Canyon hiking, Harvey Butchart, who completed the distance barely ahead of Fletcher the same year – having hiked it one section at a time over 17 years. Through his influential hiker's guide, The Complete Walker, published the same year, he became a kind of "spiritual godfather" of the wilderness backpacking movement. Through successive editions, this book became the definitive work on the topic and was christened "the Hiker's Bible" by Field & Stream magazine.
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. He married Sonia Mary Ash in 1945 and they lived in St. Ives, Cornwall for a year where he was an instructor at the Mountain Warfare Training Centre. They moved to Kenya in 1947 where they ran the Kitale Hotel. They separated in 1948 and he spent time farming in Kenya, surveying in Zimbabwe, and as a prospector in western Canada. He moved to the United States in 1956. Two years later, he walked the length of the state of California, a journey that was the basis for his first book, The Thousand-Mile Summer.
Fletcher published a total of 10 books between 1964 and 2001, which included four editions of The Complete Walker. His first book, The Thousand-Mile Summer (1964) recounted his 1958 hike along the entire eastern edge of California.
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