In 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off to run the Colorado River. The expedition held a tantalizing appeal: no one had yet surveyed the plant life of the Grand Canyon, and they were determined to be the first. Clover and Jotter's plant list, including four new cactus species, would become vital for efforts to protect and restore the river ecosystem. Brave the Wild River is a spellbinding adventure of two women who risked their lives to make an unprecedented botanical survey of a defining landscape in the American West.