Best Easy Day Hikes Salt Lake City, 2nd (Best Easy Day Hikes Series) [Paperback]

Greg Witt (Author), Brian Brinkerhoff (Author)

Book Description

Series: Best Easy Day Hikes Series | Publication Date: April 14, 2009

Hikes varying from half-hour strolls to full-day adventures, this guidebook is for everyone, including families.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Brian Brinkerhoff hosts Backcountry Utah, Utah’s longest running outdoor radio program.

 

Greg Witt is the author of Ultimate Adventures: A Rough Guide to Adventure Travel.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: FalconGuides; Second edition (April 14, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0762751126
• ISBN-13: 978-0762751129
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,133,533 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #70 in Books > Travel > United States > States > Utah

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Handy and Helpful--with serious qualifications, June 9, 2009

By 

T. Anderson (Utah) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Best Easy Day Hikes Salt Lake City, 2nd (Best Easy Day Hikes Series) (Paperback)

This second edition improves in some ways upon the first, but since those improvements are balanced by new shortcomings, the differences between the two editions makes the choice a toss-up, if not a backslide.

As I wrote before, Brinkerhoff's (and now, Gregg Witt's) little guide (like all Falcon's Best Short Hikes guides) is just the right size for stuffing into the pocket of your cargo shorts or daypack, and it covers a good sampling of short and easy Salt Lake City hikes especially suited for hikers with limited abilities or families with small children (and now, for hikers with dogs, thanks to short notes on canine compatibility). Also, the brief hike descriptions (with slightly improved layout, trailhead instructions, trail notes, distance, fee info, etc.) are generally helpful and reliable. But this book still falls short of its potential, because the improvements came at an unnecessary cost.

I mentioned before that the book could easily have been improved without sacrificing its convenient size or adding much to its cost, first, by including a few more details to some of the hike descriptions and maps. Admirably, the second edition does include some improvements in this regard, though not as many as I would have liked--especially to the maps. I also suggested extending the coverage a bit to include a few more popular and spectacular local hikes. While the new edition covers more SLC hikes (sort of--more on that below), the Utah Valley section covering American Fork Canyon was completely eliminated.

Apparently, the rationale for this substantial change was to limit the hikes to SLC alone--and that would have made some sense if the added hikes were worth the losses, and if the two areas were really separate, but they're not. Some of the added hikes (like Jordan Parkway) don't need guides or maps at all, since they're well-marked urban bike paths; and some (like City Creek) aren't even hiking trails, but popular on-road exercise routes. To eliminate the really spectacular Utah Valley trails for these token additions is a shame. Also, since the Utah Valley trails included in the first edition begin within a half hour drive of the south SLC trailheads and ultimately connect up with many of the Little Cottonwood trails, there is no real reason to consider the two areas geographically separate. I suspect the real reason for the eliminations is that the American Fork trails are covered in Greg Witt's (the new co-author's) "60 Hikes within 60 Miles of SLC."

Since this book is so small (and admirably so, for it is by far the most portable of the many Utah trail books available), I would still argue that it could easily have been expanded to cover a greater number of short and popular local trails (for instance, the many Sandy trails that are not even mentioned). And it could have done so without losing the American Fork section. Even if new material had been added without subtracting old material, the book would still have been shorter than many of Falcon's other books in this series.

So, in my opinion, the improvements to the new edition do not out-weight the losses. I still (guardedly) recommend "Best Easy Day Hikes SLC" as the best available short and cheap guide to easy (stress on EASY) SLC area trails, but a serious hiker (even with children) will definitely prefer something like David Day's "Utah's Favorite Hiking Trails," Steve Mann's "100 Hikes in Utah," or John Veranth's "Hiking the Wasatch," all of which are infinitely more informative and helpful--but also bigger and pricier. And hikers looking for a small but more comprehensive guide to real SLC mountain trails rather than an uneven mix of trails and city walking/biking paths might want to hunt down a copy of the first edition of Brinkerhoff's book rather than buy this one.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The 1st edition is better., May 2, 2010

By 

Sam R. Kand (Utah) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Best Easy Day Hikes Salt Lake City, 2nd (Best Easy Day Hikes Series) (Paperback)

These "Best Easy Day Hikes" books are great. They fit easily in a pocket, they are very informative, and most of the hikes are good for those with young children. However, if you're looking for hikes in the mountains, not walks through the Salt Lake Valley, buy the first edition instead. The entire section of hikes in American Fork Canyon has been eliminated and replaced with hikes in the Salt Lake Valley. American Fork Canyon isn't in the Salt Lake Valley, which must be why it was replaced with hikes in the valley, but it's only a half hour's drive from SLC. If you're looking to get out of the city (which is the whole point of hiking), buy the 1999 edition.