Glen and Bessie Hyde photographed in their sweep boat on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, 1928 ( On October 20, 1928, Glen and Bessie Hyde set off on the Colorado River to break a world record. In a boat Glen built himself, the newlyweds attempted a speed-record paddle from Green River, Utah, down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. The record would have made Bessie the first woman to run this stretch of water—except that shortly after they launched, the two mysteriously disappeared.
The couple was last seen alive on November 18, 1928. Three weeks later, rescuers found their abandoned, fully loaded boat near river mile 237. Their bodies were never recovered.
Peter Runge, a historian at Northern Arizona University, told Outside that the Hyde disappearance remains one of the Grand Canyon’s most perplexing unsolved cases. Although nobody knows what happened to the couple, Runge said the archives hold some clues. In 1996, author Brad Dimock published a book about the Hyde mystery titled Sunk Without a Sound.
He describes Glen as an experienced outdoorsman who rowed the Salmon and Snake Rivers in Idaho. He met Bessie while traveling on a passenger ship from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 1925, and they married the following April—just six months before setting off on what would become a record-breaking descent. Glen was 29 when they disappeared; Bessie was 22.
November can be a volatile time in the Grand Canyon, with chilly nights and mornings, unexpected rain, wind, and sometimes low-elevation snow. Today, a standard river trip through the Grand Canyon runs 277 river miles, lasts 14 to 26 days, and begins at Lee’s Ferry and ends at Diamond Creek or near Pearce Ferry. It has 250 whitewater rapids, each ranked by difficulty.
Runge said this pre-dammed environment was extremely hazardous. As the trip continues, there’s less and less in her eyes and facial expressions.” In the last known photo taken of Bessie, she looks tired and worn out, according to Runge. This could have been partly due to their gear.
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