Customer Reviews

Benchmark Arizona Road & Recreation Atlas - 6th edition

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As an avid off-roader, I look for remote, under-the-radar types of places. Fortunately, my home state is one of the best places for 4x4 wandering. Anybody can hook up with some Glamis types and rip-it-up at a local sand dune. For me, wilderness means getting far out of Phoenix, driving long distances on dusty back roads and eventually finding that perfectly lonely camp site. Enter the Benchmark Maps' "Arizona Road & Recreational Atlas." For browsing alone, it has been the impetus for multiple back country trips. When used with Google Earth and a guidebook, this tool has been perfect for triangulating locations and showing routes. The DeLorme Atlas is the obvious comparison. The DeLorme is also a good atlas, but I really appreciate the "readability" of the Benchmark. The colors are in harmony with desert esthetics while better expressing elevation. Unlike in previous editions, the 6th is split into two main sections. There is a landscape map section and another for public lands. Most folks won't need more than the conventional landscape maps. If you're doing a week long trip into an unknown section of back country, it's always helpful to know if you're on private property or public lands. Given that you're allowed to do different things on the lands of different agencies, it's helpful to take a glance and know if you're in Grand Canyon National Park, the Hualapai Reservation or on good ol' BLM land. This atlas shows tons of back roads, GPS grids, a recreational guide for the newbies and legends that are clear to read. As an added plus, it shows additional maps for getting around in urban Tuscon and Phoenix. When exploring the desert or getting around in the city, the 6th edition of Benchmarks' atlas is about all anyone will need to get around in the Grand Canyon State.

Main complaint:
The scale on the pages is 400,000 to 1. This means you lose A LOT of detail.
I have the Nevada (280,000 to 1) & Utah (250,000 to 1) map books by Benchmark and the difference in usefulness is striking.

If you have the chance, take a look at the Utah vs New Mexico or Arizona books to see for yourself.

Rather than have the large scale "landscape" maps and then fine scale detail maps (as they do with the Nevada and Utah books) Benchmark just uses the same scale, same maps and just changes the background information.
All four of the "four corner" map books should be at the same scale, all under 300,000 to one.

I wrote directly to Benchmark with feedback concerning this and other issues and they could not bother with a reply. I will think twice before buying their products again.

Benchmark guides are nice, but the scale in this book compared to Utah or Oregon makes it nearly unusable. The colors and road conditions are great, but I'd recommend Delorme's atlas over this one for Arizona any day. Many roads that are captured in other atlas's are not contained in this book.

I have owned 2 of these books. They get so much use on my travels I wear them out. There is always a copy of one in the BLM fire truck...it is USEFUL! An EXTREMELY comprehensive book on the state of Arizona. Main roads as well as little known dirt roads are well represented. Relief maps, points of interest, highway exit numbers, as well as peak names and other landmarks make these pages as close to USGS topo maps you are going to get. The back of the atlas has metro area maps that have all the main roads in a metro area. Benchmark makes one of these for almost every state in the US...I own 12 different states in the West.

If you hike, mountain bike, travel back roads, love landscape photography, go camping, hunt, or fish...this atlas is almost REQUIRED!

This is a good atlas that will probably suffice for most people's purposes, including backcountry exploration and hiking. The "Public Lands" section is very useful, showing boundaries of BLM, state, national forest, national park and tribal lands, as well as the boundaries of wilderness areas. It also has a section of Sonora that will be useful if you plan on driving into Mexico towards Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point). My main complaint - I agree with the other reviewers that the scale is too small. The only difference between the "Landscape" and "Public Lands" sections is that the Landscape section is colored by elevation and the Public Lands section is colored by land ownership. Literally everything else on the map, including contour lines, is identical, so the Landscape section is basically just the Public Lands section with information thrown away. They should have just gotten rid of the Landscape section and doubled the scale! Hopefully Benchmark will address this in a future edition.

If you travel dirt roads then this is what you want, no other maps even come close, I own the entire series and have used all of them to plan my motorcycle travels, my only gripe is they don't come in a smaller size for motorcycle use. Some people mention the Delorme's Atlas but I have tried both and those just don't have all the info and detail that these have, especially if you travel back roads like me. I hope Benchmark will expand their series to more states soon; Alaska? The Dakotas maybe?

I bought this for my husband. He is enjoying it and is glad he received it. He goes hunting a couple times a year as well as some fishing, so this is a very nice guide for Arizona, whether you hunt, fish, camp, bird, or simply like to explore.

Best state Atlas I've ever owned. Has very detailed information about off-road trails, which is the main reason I bought it.

This map is indispensable for anyone looking to explore the back roads of Arizona. If you've ever traveled down the highway and seen an dirt road stretching off towards the horizon and wondered where it led, this atlas is for you. Also, wondering what the name of that mountain peak is? Or if the land you're on is State? Federal? Or where a nearby camping spot is? All of that (and more) is found on this atlas' pages. If you're a hiker or a serious off-roader, you still may want to order topo maps of area to which you're heading. To date, I've found two roads on the map which I haven't been able to locate in real life (both in this updated edition, and in a previous edition). In other words, this atlas doesn't have ALL of the back roads, and it is not infallible. However, if you're a camper, off-roader, hiker, explorer, or would just like to be better acquainted with the state of Arizona, this is the atlas for you. Like most other reviewers, I highly prefer this atlas to a similar version published by DeLorme. It may be simply a matter of taste, but I have the DeLorme for Colorado (an errant purchase by my husband!), and I find myself frequently frustrated by it; it doesn't seem to be nearly as user-friendly as the Benchmark maps.