Customer Reviews

The Appalachian Trail Visitor's Companion (Official Guides to the Appalachian Trail)

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This books contains everything you would ever want to know or would expect to encounter on the Appalachian Trail. It gives a quick overview of the history of the trail and a concise description of how the Appalachian Mountains came into being and why they look the way they do today. Individual chapters cover the trees, flowers, mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians found along the trail. In easy to understand writing, Adkins provides bits of information on how a plant reproduces, where it lives, why it looks the way it does, etc. The chapters on mammals, birds and reptiles not only give an identification description of each animal, but also how it goes about its daily life and what signs to look for to see if it has been in the area recently. The book won the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award, and deserves it. I found my walks in the woods to be greatly enhanced after looking through this book.

There are tons of "I Hiked the Appalachian Trail" books, and just as many "How to Hike the Appalachian Trail" books, but this is the only one that tells (and explains) what you are going to see while you're out there. Why does a particular flower grow here and not there? What kind of forest am I walking through? How can I tell the difference between bear scat and fox scat? Why are there no trees on the top of this mountain when there is no true treeline in the South?
Then there are the little tidbits like why a box turtle is called a box turtle, how rhodendron grows in such dense thickets, and how bogs come to be.
A great book--and the winner of the Society of American Travel Writer's Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award for best new guidebook.

Book was in excellent condition for being used. The book was well protected during shipping. Arrived in a reasonable time period. Great christmas gift!