Customer Reviews

60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Seattle: Including Bellevue, Everett, and Tacoma

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This well structured hiking book fills a gap in the suite of similar books that cover the Olympics and the Cascades in Western Washington. This volume does a good job identifying interesting hikes close to the metropolitan Puget Sound Basin--the title says it all. The book also adds features that many other hiking books lack, most notably good hike maps and hike profiles. You can do all the hikes in this book without supplemental maps.

Even if you already own a Seattle hiking guide, this book is worth purchasing. It includes many often-overlooked hikes and trail-runs that involve minimal driving time. Each hike has an informational box with pertinent facts e.g. distance, difficulty, terrain, so that browsing for what you want is remarkably easy. Unlike other local guidebooks, the maps include markers that correspond to salient features in the trail descriptions, making them infinitely more useful. The descriptions themselves are well written, precise, and include interesting historical facts. Plus, as the book is brand-new, the trail information is all up to date.

This book has a bunch of really good hikes right near Seattle and the Eastside which is what sets it apart from others I have seen (although it also has some farther out in the mountains). There are a lot of great options if you don't feel like driving too far. Really good if you have kids, or if you want some hard and some easy hikes. The book says it has 40 hikes available year-round, which is great in the winter months. Definitely recommended.

The other day I found myself in the passenger seat of my own car for an extended trip. Miles from nowhere with not much left to talk about and nothing but scratchy country music on the radio I noticed the guidebook I had received as a gift, stashed in the sidepocket and promptly forgotten. Raised on the Mountainers "100 Hikes" series, I knew guidebooks to be invaluable on the trail, but as reading material dryer than Central Oregon scree in mid-August.

As I thumbed the pages of "60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Seattle," I quickly moved from bored to engaged to engrossed. This book was good! In addition to finding dozens of previously overlooked trails within a short drive of my Seattle home, I learned many new and fascinating details about the places I've been hiking for years. The trail descriptions are accurate and appropriately detailed. The navigational instruction are clear and include useful visual landmarks in addition to the usual distance cues. What's best though, is that into the brief trail write-ups Weber and Stevens manage to weave bits of local history, trivia and entertaining lore that greatly enhance the hiking experience. I even found myself reading several sections aloud to my travelling companion. Finally, the authors also understand that sometimes the best hiking tip is not the trail itself, but the location of the local frosty mug or renowned double deluxe burger at trails end!

Whether you are new in town, just visiting, or a soggy Seattle native like myself, "60 Hikes" makes a great addition to your recreation library.

What I like:

* I love how it features hikes *within* Seattle, Kirkland and Bellevue. Many guidebooks skip hikes within the city altogether. The one you can kayak to is pretty neat! I expect that these trails will be good for the colder months, when trails in the Cascades are snowed out. I'm looking forward to using this book more and more later in the year.

* The descriptions are quite thorough. The details help me visualize the hike, and this can be motivating sometimes. This has some cons though -- see below.

* It has a section for nearby activities. I find that useful when planning side trips/activities.

* It provides the GPS coordinates of the trailhead.


What I don't like:

* Each page has a header that is a black area with white text. On the left page it says "{hike #} 60 hikes within 60 miles" and on the right side, "Seattle including Bellevue, Everett and Tacoma". I think this space could be used better if it displayed the name of the hike and the general area instead of the same text over and over.

* Key at-a-glance information is shown in a black box with small white text. This information is quite important to me when deciding which hike to do, and I would rather have it in a more readable form. Better yet, have it in a form that I can actually digest "at a glance" (!) instead of having to read the small white-on-black text. Other guidebooks show some of this information graphically, with stars or hiker icons to indicate difficulty and/or rating. At the very least, I think the font should be the same size as the descriptive text.

* Driving directions and GPS coordinates are printed as black text over a light/dark gray background. Bad contrast!

* The descriptive text is loooong. I appreciate that sometimes, but I it's too verbose for my taste. The font size is rather small, which for me makes reading the description even less appealing.

* Whether or not dogs are allowed is also in the description text. Since I have a dog, I'd like to know this immediately, so again, I think it should be displayed more prominently.

* It would be nice if it had a topographical map for the longer trails. I find it hard to reconstruct the lie of the land from the map and the elevation graph, especially since the map doesn't have mile markers along the representation of the hike's trail. [Yes, I have my own topo map of the entire area, but a small one that I can carry with the trail description is convenient as a adjunct to a larger map.]


All things considered, I have mixed feelings about this book. It has good content, but I think there are better ones out there. Call me superficial, but I'm a weekend hiker, and the difference between an engaging/beautiful versus so-so/mediocre presentation can have a big effect on my enthusiasm for a particular hike :)

Got this book about an year ago and have since done almost half of the hikes described in this book. Can't say if these are the 60 best hikes (there are much more than 60 hikes in the covered area), but they've definitely all been great hikes so far.

The hikes can all be done as day trips from Seattle: The maximum driving distance from Seattle is 60 miles, except for the Mt Rainier hikes, which are more like 60 miles as the crow flies. Come to think of it, the driving time would be a more relevant criteria than the distance, but of course that wouldn't make for such a nice title.

The format of the book is quite practical. In particular, I appreciate the trailhead GPS coordinates, the easily accessible and detailed overview map, and the trail elevation profiles. There are more than a dozen criteria for choosing a hike, including trail length, crowdedness and various scenic features. Only, I wish this information was presented in a table rather than in list form, which makes choosing hikes based on multiple criteria a bit tedious.

I wasn't too enthusiastic about the schematic trail maps that lack topographic information. However all the trails I've seen so far were well marked, so this didn't turn out to be a big issue. On the other hand the book could use more pictures and perhaps less text: In this context, a picture (with a good caption) really can be worth a thousand (or at least a few hundred...) words.

Before you leave on any of the hikes, be sure to check with the WSDOT and the relevant park authorities that the roads to the trail (and the trail itself) are accessible. Look for recent trail reports on the WTA's site. At least two of the trails (Bare Mountain and Carbon Glacier) are no longer accessible (with no immediate plans to fix the access roads).

Finally, I can't help but think that the information in such books would be more useful if presented on the Web: People could upload or link pictures, add trail reports, download GPS routes etc. Searching and sorting through lists of hikes should also be much easier. In fact the hikes in this book seem to be on trails.com, might be worth a look...

This is one of the best books I have found for the newbie hiker in seattle. If you have a GPS it is even better as you can just the coordinates in the book to find the starting point for each hike. The Maps are great! The descriptions are great!

I am a commited day hiker...have used a lot of different books over 30 years and this is one of the best. I find it easy to use, the at-a-glance key information for each hike has more details then any other hiking book I have used, directions are clear, discriptions accurate and up to date. I especially enjoy the cross indexing of trail types...lists of waterfall hikes, view hikes, steep hikes, urban hikes, hikes with kids, trails for runners....and many more. Makes finding just the right hike for the day easy and fun. I have the Portland version too....would like to have more.

My husband is a Scoutmaster and checked out a number of books from the library before he decided which book was the best for the hikes he was planning. This was it so we ordered it. You won't be disappointed.

60 Hikes within 60 Miles is a gem for those of us looking for trails that are easier (EZ to mid-intermediate), long, and close to Seattle. There are trails I haven't heard of before I got this book. With this book and Beyond Mt. Si, you're set. These trails are so beautiful, old growth, some paved over railroad tracks, and the Preston-Snoqualmie Falls trail with the outlook is awesome.

One suggestion, however: Pet restricted trails should be noted. Went to the Watershed Reserve Trail in Redmond, and discovered that dogs weren't allowed (HORSES WERE ALLOWED! go figure) Luckily, the Arboretum is close by off 520, so that lowered a few raised hackles and saved the day. Dog-friendly is an important feature to add in trail descriptions.

Other than that, this is an excellent, easy to follow hiking book.