Since the completion of the Grand Canyon expedition, the team has been charging forward in characteristic style. Lonnie “the LonDart” Bedwell outdid his accomplishment on the Grand Canyon by heading to Zambia with Timmy O’Neill and famous kayaker Eric Jackson. Together they paddled a twenty-five-mile section of the Zambezi River with rapids even bigger and fiercer than those of the Grand Canyon. When I asked him if he was scared of the crocs, he answered, “I wasn’t too worried. If one came at me, I was told to paddle straight at it, and they usually duck. Then, of course, you turn around and paddle like hell!”

Lonnie still hunts with the man who accidentally shot him, and he recently organized a turkey hunt in Indiana for blind and visually impaired veterans. “Hunting blind,” he says. “Why not?”

But topping all of his accomplishments, he finally took a leap and bought a cell phone. Although last time I called him, I got this voice message: “Hey, you’ve reached Lonnie. Thanks for calling. I’ll call you back as soon as I can see to find the phone.”

For Steven Mace, our expedition became a launching point. He distinguished himself as such a valuable hard worker, he was subsequently hired as a guide for Arizona Raft Adventures and now works in the Big Ditch.

When I asked Timmy O’Neill what he was going to do after the Grand Canyon, he said, “Continue to live a life of chaos, rebellion, mystery, and love.” For his fortieth birthday, he BASE jumped off El Capitan and Half Dome in one day, and he continues to push the boundaries of climbing and slacklining. In honor of his brother Sean, who was paralyzed, he helped found Paradox Sports, with a mission of promoting adaptive mountain sports. Most recently he’s been volunteering with the Himalayan Cataract Project in developing countries like Ethiopia, assisting in eye surgeries to cure preventable blindness.

While poring over river maps of Peru, Rocky Contos made a remarkable discovery. The Apurímac in Peru had been established as the most distant source of the Amazon, but after careful examination, he determined that the nearby Río Mantaro was actually eighty kilometers longer. Not wanting to miss out, Rocky scrambled to put together a plan and headed for South America. After hiking for two days to the headwaters of the Río Mantaro, Rocky spent the next two months kayaking and traveling by boat, becoming the first person ever to complete the entire descent of the Amazon from its most distant source to the sea.

Rob Raker was diagnosed with Stage IV prostate cancer in 2010, but he has outlived the initial prognosis and is still going strong. In February 2016, Rob was accepted into a clinical trial at the National Institutes of Health, a treatment involving a genetically tailored vaccine that could help his immune system fight the cancer. Since February 2016, his PSA has stopped increasing.