Yampa Yearnings Book

Award-winning Author Eugene Buchanan Debuts New Book “Yampa Yearnings”

A personal and powerful chronicle of the Yampa River, the last wild tributary to the
Colorado River System

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, COLO. (December 2, 2025) – A new book, Yampa Yearnings, by award-winning author Eugene Buchanan, heralds northwest Colorado’s Yampa River, the last remaining free-flowing tributary to the Colorado River Basin, increasing readers’ awareness of their own backyard waterways through Buchanan’s 30-year relationship with his beloved hometown river.

From its headwaters, a flycast away from the birthplace of the country’s wilderness movement to its confluence with the Green River 250 miles later in Dinosaur National Monument, the Yampa River supports agriculture, municipalities, a world-class ski resort, industry, endangered fish, unique riparian zones, water rights, recreation, and more.

The author of six books, Buchanan, whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Men’s Journal, Outside, National Geographic Adventure, and other publications, addresses all of this and more, as well as his own interactions with the river, instilling a sense of waterway preservation in everyone who turns its pages.

“I first saw the Yampa on a five-day raft trip with my family through Dinosaur when I was 10,” said Buchanan, who has lived along its banks in Steamboat Springs for nearly 35 years. “What I didn't know then was how that experience would shape my life, from my career to raising my two daughters in and along it. It has lessons for all of us.”

A lifelong paddler and member of New York’s Explorer’s Club, Buchanan has a long career writing about water, from covering Colorado water rights for the Denver Business Journal to publishing Paddler magazine and founding Paddlinglife.com. He also served for 20 years on the board of directors for Friends of the Yampa, helping preserve the waterway in today’s web of water rights, recreation, access, climate change, habitat hurdles, and more. All this comes alive in Yampa Yearnings, which dives into everything from preservation efforts and water rights to agriculture, endangered fish, recreation, and more—all while unveiling how a river serves as the lifeblood of a community.  

“With the Yampa so instrumental in my life, I’m motivated to make a difference — using it as a way for others to realizemap of the Yampa River the importance of waterways in their own backyards,” he said, likening the book to David James Duncan’s My Story as Told by Water. “It blends my own personal experiences with the message of protecting and preserving it in this era of increasing water challenges in the Colorado River Basin.”

Nonprofit support for the book comes from the Walton Family Foundation, American Rivers, Friends of the Yampa, River Network, River Management Society, and Yampa River Fund; corporate support from Alpacka Packrafts, NRS, b2 Inc., Cruiser’s Sub Shop/River Collective, Recreation Engineering and Planning, the Boyd & Berend Group/Steamboat Sotheby’s International Realty, Ski Haus, and Backdoor Sports; and Kickstarter support from Honey Stinger, Hala Gear, Riversmith, Adrift Dinosaur, Fishpond, Steamboat Powdercats, Paddling Life, Rig to Flip, and Mythology Distillery.
 

 
About the Author: A former reporter for the Denver Business Journal and 16-year editor-in-chief of Paddler magazine, Eugene Buchanan has written about the outdoors for more than 30 years, from covering the X Games for ESPN.com to working for NBC at the Beijing Olympics. A former ski patrol and kayak/raft guide, he also enjoys a successful freelance career, with articles published in the New York Times, Men's Journal, Sports Afield, Outside, National Geographic Adventure, Popular Mechanics, Skiing, Powder, and other publications. A member of New York's Explorer's Club and avid adventurer, Buchanan’s passion for traveling, writing and paddling have taken him from the headwaters of the Amazon to Siberia. His books include Brothers on the Bashkaus, Outdoor Parents Outdoor Kids (winner, Living Now Book Awards), Ultimate Canoe & Kayak Adventures, Comrades on the Colca, and Tales from a Mountain Town. He lives in Steamboat Springs, Colo. Info: www.eugenebuchanan.com.

Advanced Praise for Yampa Yearnings:
 
"Eugene Buchanan knows rivers, and he knows river-running. But for this seasoned adventurer, the Yampa is different. It's his touchstone, his home stream, his happy place. And what a treat it is to read this paean to a wild yet fragile river, written by its most devoted pilgrim and its most knowledgeable advocate. As the pages turn, Buchanan will make you feel every kink and rapid, every eddy and twist, of this great unsung American waterway.”
— Hampton Sides, NYT bestselling author of Blood and Thunder and The Wide Wide Sea

“With Yampa Yearnings, Eugene Buchanan makes a persuasive case that running water is the best friend a man can have, never to be taken for granted. Like the river in spring, these pages carry the spirit of adventure, with a trace of danger lurking beneath the surface. Grab your paddle.”
— Ben McGrath, author of Riverman: An American Odyssey

“In a time when dams and diversions threaten the last wild places, Yampa Yearnings is a reminder of what we stand to lose—and why we must fight to preserve it. This book doesn’t just chronicle a river; it rekindles a yearning—for wilderness, for wonder, for water that still runs free. There are rivers that run through canyons, and then there are rivers that run through the soul. The Yampa is the latter—an untamed ribbon of water that has defied the centuries and the cement. This isn’t just a book; it’s a love letter to one of the last truly wild rivers in the American West. Reading Buchanan’s pages feels like slipping into the current of the Yampa itself: swift, lyrical, surprising. Buchanan gets it. He knows that this river is more than a waterway; it’s a passage, a portal, a teacher.”
— Richard Bangs, author of Riding the Dragon’s Back, and The Art of Living Dangerously

“At a time when it’s popular to romanticize adventures in far-flung places, Eugene Buchanan takes us on an intimate journey down the river in our backyard. With a dry sense of humor, like an old-dog raft guide, he shares the adventure and the soul of the river, along with the ever-present threat from forces that want to domesticate anything that is wild and free.”
— Jon Turk, author of Cold Oceans, The Raven’s Gift, and In the Wake of the Jomon

“Buchanan weaves together a lively and rollicking ride through the thrills of runoff to the greater ecological forces that shape the town’s overlooked lifeblood. While he has an unmatched career as paddling’s preeminent scribe, exploring (and extolling) rivers around the world, after all those adventures, this proves why the Yampa matters most in this often wild and overlooked corner of the West.   
— Dave Shively, Outside Inc., author of The Pacific Alone: The Untold Story of Kayaking's Boldest Voyage

 “From his days as a 'happy-go-lucky hooligan' scrambling down Boulder Creek through his damp decades exploring the world’s roiling waters, Eugene Buchanan weaves the adventure of whitewater into his hometown’s irrevocable connection to its beloved Yampa River. As outside pressures focus on the untamed Yampa—from recreational, agricultural, housing and energy interests on top of ever-thirsty urbanites—Buchanan reminds us that a river is, first and foremost, the lifeblood of community.”
— Jason Blevins, The Colorado Sun