Customer Reviews

California Trails Northern Sierra Region

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This is a good informative book. The trail descriptions are well detailed with turn by turn directions along with GPS coords. I have only tried a couple trails so far and they seem close to what is out there in reality. I would say most of the trails are fairly easy, 2's & 3's, (where a 5 or above is high clearance 4WD required) and more for the scenic value. Always double check with the local NFS office for closures of roads and trails. I will post an update after I have tried more trails when the snow clears.

This is a great book... in fact the whole series is great. It has good detail about local history as well as natural history for each trip. As someone has said, the maps are a little sparse, but THEY ARE NO SUBSTITUE FOR A GOOD FOREST SERVICE/BLM/USGS MAP!!! Go prepared, check road conditions BEFORE you travel and have a great time, because this book will lead you to some great places you didn't know existed.

One reason you want to make sure you have detailed maps of the area besides the ones in the book... Just yesterday, my wife and I went on a trip from the book and found that there was a rock-slide that completely blocked the road. A ginormous boulder about 12 feet high was in the way. Well, we consulted the USFS map and found a way around it and made it to our destination and we were NOT disappointed in the least.

I use it to plan family trips in the Subaru Forester (which can easily handle Level 3 roads and probably Level 4 as well if you are careful/experienced) as well as solo/group dual-sport motorcycle trips.

While I found this book to be pretty much as advertised, I don't completely trust the authors. There are a lot of detailed driving instructions on each road featured, including odometer readings to the tenth of a mile. There is also a good amount of historical information present which I found very interesting.

However, I find it challenging to have much faith in the details of this book, since the authors did not get the name right for the fire lookout shown on the front cover. They call it Grizzly Ridge Lookout, when it is actually Argentine Rock (or just Argentine) Lookout. How can I be sure? I spent two entire summers staffing this lookout back in its active days. The spur road to the lookout is reached from the Grizzly Ridge Road to be sure, but that is not, and never has been, the name of the lookout. The authors should at least have learned that from the Forest Service map.

How long ago did the authors actually make the trip described? When I last visited the Argentine Lookout in 2004, the structure had deteriorated considerably more over the years since the cover picture had been taken. This makes me wonder how much the road conditions described have changed as well. Is this book out of date? Very likely, at least for certain raods described.