Customer Reviews

Day Hikes Yosemite National Park

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

 

 

This is a fine guide if you have never hiked before in a National Park, or if you merely dabble occasionally in the sport. The maps are excellent, as are the trail descriptions, elevation gains and driving directions to the trail heads. Most of these hikes can easily be completed by even the most unfit hiker, children, or eldery people.

However, this is *not* the guide to purchase if you are a serious hiker. I was bemused to see that this book doesn't even contain the quintessential Yosemite hike, Half Dome. Nor does it contain the second-best hike in the park, the Four-and-a-half-mile-trail. In fact, none of the hikes profiled in this Guide are lengthier than a few miles and none would be considered even semi-strenuous. Heed this advice if you're a serious hiker and consult a different guide. But if you're just a casual weekend athlete, or have children in tow, this is a well-written and adequate book for your needs.

If a short hike is what you're looking for, this is the right book for you! The hikes are short and accessible. You find all the information you need; the maps are good enough, the pictures exquisite... In short, a good book mainly for beginners. For more challenging hikes or longer backpacking trips, look somewhere else...

Robert Stone writes hiking guides with a strong bias towards the typical day hiker. This is fine and his books easily fit the schedules of most national park tourists. While Ms. Scott is correct in noting that some of the longer classics in the park, notably Half Dome and Clouds Rest, are not included in this book, many nice hikes are. These include Lembert Dome, May Lake, and the very strenuous climb to the lip of Yosemite Falls. Hike distances range from 1/2 mile to 10 miles. Approximately 1/3 of the hikes described are between 2 and 3 miles. What separates this guide from the many other day hiking guides available to Yosemite is that Stone has a strong preference for stream side hikes. Walks along Upper Yosemite Creek and to Foresta Falls are simply not found in other guides of this sort.

I've done about half the hikes described by Stone and they are all winners. That said, I cannot give this book five stars. In the first instance, while the maps are well drawn, I prefer north to always be at the top of the page and Stone's maps in this volume are presented in a variety of different settings. I also found that on occasion, the routes he describes are actually longer than the mileage he provides. For example, he begins the hike to the top of Yosemite Falls from the Lodge, not camp 4, but this adds about a mile to the trip. Still, this is a nice book with lots of pleasant diversions from the typical drive through the park. If you are looking for pleasant day hikes, this is a decent volume.

While I can agree with SOME of the comments in the reviews above, this book does contain some fairly good hikes.

The hike up Yosemite falls, while not THAT long (8 miles or so) is a fairly good hike, you gain 2700 feet in elevation, and it's at least what I would consider pretty much an all day hike.

The book contains fairly good maps and directions for each hike, I was a bit disappointed with some of the hikes (having lower Yosemite falls listed as a hike is a bit of a joke) but overall this book has been well worth the money.