Customer Reviews

Foghorn Outdoors Utah Hiking: The Complete Guide to More Than 300 of the Best Hikes in the Beehive State

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

 

 

A disappointing hiker's guide to Utah. Lists lots of hikes, gives a 1-5 dificulty rating, 1-10 "appeal rating", length of hike, location, cursory instruction to get to trailhead. Hikes are organized by 6 regions in the state. The hike's description lacks info on altitudes (Does it climb 600 or 6000 feet? Does it start at 6000 feet so I need a coat?) The book's only map is a state map showing location of all the hikes - no individual maps of trails or roads to trailheads. Almost every hike suggests where you should go to buy a topo of the area. Why repeat this boilerplate for every hike? The trail descriptions don't explain the reason for the appeal rating. (Is it great red-rock vista, or a nice stream, or just developed campsites that make the hike a "7"?)

My biggest problem with this book besides no maps and scant detail on hikes is this... No pictures! Notta, nil, nothing. This book desperately needs a major revision.

So many hikes in this book covering all regions of the state. What I initialy liked about this book, and which is its strong point, is each trail's length, physical difficulty rating, and beauty rating. Such a nice way to lay out a hiking book, thus you can ask 'where could I do a two night backpacking trip at a certain elevation in a certain part of the state?' Trouble is, for example, at least one late spring a couple years ago, I found a hike in the La Sals starting near Castle Valley/Moab which sounded perfect (moderate elevation- snow melted but not hot desert) but the beginning of the hike was on private cattle property- the trail was difficult to follow and closed by multiple gates! After a couple hours I had to head back to the car and rethink my mini-vacation. I've had similar trouble with a couple other trails- difficult to know what you're supposed to do in these situations; keep going and hope for the best?

I'm not sure what the other reviewers were talking about (esp. since this book has maps AND pictures), but I found this guidebook to be indispensable when I was planning my hiking trips in Utah. I found the ratings system simple and informative, especially since there's a short explanation of the system in the book's beginning. It's a first-rate guide and I recommend it highly.