Customer Reviews

Arches and Canyonlands Park BasiX

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This is another kind of national park films. It serves as a trip planner for any one who plans to visit the parks. It instructs you how to prepare this and that so that you can have a safe and pleasant trip when visiting the parks. Although scenic hot spots in the parks can be seen in this film, they are not the focus and are usually passed without too much description.

I think the strength of this film is the trail overview, especially the Canyonlands National Park. This park is one of the wildest and perhaps toughest to visit for most people. You can see the scenes on these trails and determine if it is worth your efforts to do it.

On the whole, I don't think this piece fits the taste of most people. But if you are kind of trail-holic or hiking-maniac, you might find this is the exact one you are looking for.

I purchased this recently after multiple trips to Arches and Canyonlands, so it serves me as a reminder of what I've seen, rather than as a planner. I bought it instead of one of the many other videos offered because of the trail footage. For me, that part was the highlight, and it didn't disappoint. I have hiked about 2/3 of the trails featured and think this video includes the highlights from each. It was also fun to see footage of places I'll likely never see, especially the Maze.
As a planner, the overview of the parks is pretty basic and mostly common sense. I think, as another review indicated, there are probably better choices for park history, flora and fauna, and superior shots of the spectacular landscape. But none of that is a stated objective of this video.
I would like to have seen an increased use of graphics... there are almost none, other than a couple of very primitive trail maps... and some aerial shots. More specific information about the trails, such as elevation change and approximate completion time would be helpful. You will definitely want a good trail book to supplement this video. This is obviously a local effort, probably by a small company or group of individuals, and I think they accomplished their basic goal of featuring the trails of these two parks.

If you need more than half of a 90-minute video of two incredible national parks to literally have clips of two hikers on sections of trail, including not just difficult slickrock, or deep, plod-inducing loose sand, but flat, packed, kindergarten-level hiking trails, then, by all means, by this video.

(And, if you do need such a video, you ought to be barred from hiking in a place like Canyonlands.)

If you don't, skip this worthless piece of trash. I will also say, sight unseen, skip other "Park BasiX" videos by this same set of people. And, as they are also professional tour guides/outfitters in this area, skip their company as well.

As well as boring with the mind- and eye-numbing fluff of two people hiking, if I heard the hackneyed phrase "It is worth your..." one more time, I was going to fly to Moab to strangle a couple of people.