Customer Reviews

Backpacking Idaho

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

 

 

Idaho has more than four million acres of designated wilderness, impressive mountains, beautiful desert canyons, and adventuresome rivers. All of this spectacular Idaho scenery is perfect for nature-loving packbackers. Doug Lorain's Backpacking Idaho: From Alpine Peaks To Desert Canyons showcases 33 diverse "backpacker friendly" trips ranging from three day getaways to two week extended excursions. Backpacking Idaho lays out routes in the Selkirk and Sawtooth mountains, the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness area, the Continental Divide Trail, and in the Yellowstone National Park. Provided are trip summary charts with ratings for scenery, solitude, and degree of difficulty, as well as maps highlighting trail types, campsites, ranger stations, and elevation. If you are looking to personally experience Idaho's most memorable hiking opportunities, then you need a copy of Doug Lorain's Backpacking Idaho!

I enjoyed reading the book and the authors comments on the area. I do suggest that you do more research however because I found out that the topo maps listed were off when comparing the the map in the book to the topo quads. As always it is better to be over prepared even for a short hike. This book should get you a start.

This is a great book with a lot of great hike. Thought the book is for "backpacking" meaning that all the hikes in it are about 3 to 5 day longs and therefore require some knowledge to do them safely. But it's a must have if you want to discover some of the great wilderness places we have in Idaho.

This book is so well organized that it should be used as a template for other guide book writers. At the beginning of the book, there is an excellent chart summarizing all the hikes by scenary, solitude, difficulty, days to complete, miles, elevation gain and time of year to hike. This makes it easy to narrow down the hikes you want to attempt! While these are somewhat subjective catagories, it is still useful to have the writers input, especially when you are planning a trip to a new location. All guide books should strive to be as organized and informative as this guide book! If you are going to hike in Idaho I highly recommend this book. (Review regarding 2010 version).

Idaho backpacking trips are listed and graded by area, time of year (based on snow melted off) difficulty and length. This is very helpful. Detailed descriptions are provided, along with helpful hints. Some of the trips are very long and difficult (50 miles or more). Others are a bit more tame.

Overall a good selection of trips to take, and the author tried to give the ones he feels represent the best of each region of the state.