Customer Reviews

Grand Canyon Treks

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

 

 

Harvey Butchart is of course the God of Grand Canyon hiking and this guide is essential for any serious backcountry canyon hiker. While hiking down to the river in Cottonwood Canyon, I was sent on a scary, exposure-filled detour by this guide. On returning home, I compared it to my old editions of the book and found that this reprint mistakenly drops an entire crucial line of text in the Cottonwood Canyon section, so beware.

Harvey Butchart is one of the greatest Grand Canyon hikers and his books are classics. But don't rely on them as your primary guide. They make great supplemental guides if you already have Annerino's Sierra Club guide.

Of course, Harvey includes routes you won't find in any other book, since he pioneered them. If you are a serious Canyon hiker, your library is incomplete without Harvey.

I bought this book thinking it contained maps and detailed trail descriptions for obscure Canyon paths, only to find that it did not. (If you want that, get Annerino's Sierra Club book, which is the best available that I've seen, and I have the Falcon Guide too, which is likewise more helpful than this work, though this one touches upon some tremendously obscure areas Falcon doesn't.)

As a guide, this book is ok, but *definitely* insufficiently detailed. I found it fascinating and entertaining, but it should be called Harvey Butchart's Fairly General Descriptions of Grand Canyon Trails, Very Well Written, and With Stories About Many of These Trails.

It was very frustrating to get the book without the highly detailed Butchart maps, which are alluded to (they show in red pen the paths and approaches he took, and in many cases, pioneered) but NOT INCLUDED.

Butchart has led a hiking life for all of us to envy, as this book makes clear.

Butchart's book is the only reference to about half the routes talked about in the book! Having hiked several of the routes in the book, ive found the descriptions to give just enough information to get you going in the right direction without taking away the adventure of it all by telling you every detail that you will experience. A must for Canyon hikers.

Written by experienced hiker Harvey Butchart, Grand Canyon Treks is a travelogue of Butchart's pioneering explorations through the Grand Canyon, whose travels have taken him across more than 12,000 miles of remote and previously uncharted Grand Canyon territory. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs, Grand Canyon Treks is an armchair traveler's delight in its vivid descriptions of numerous trails, from Bright Angel Trail and Campground to Tanner Trail routes away from it in the Eastern Grand Canyon, to upriver and downriver from President Harding Rapids in the Marble Canyon area, to the Toroweap Area in the Western Grand Canyon and much, much more. Appendices offer a wealth of helpful hints for aspiring hikers, such as precautions to take to avoid heat-related illness and hypothermia, but Grand Canyon Treks is primarily a travelogue to be savored for its details, memories, and fascinating tidbits of historical background, not a how-to guide and not a collection of trail maps. A treasure for anyone curious about what it's like to travel the Grand Canyon on foot.

This is basically a reprint of Harvey Butchart's original 3 booklets (which I had at one time) with some additional information added. The information is very sketchy and should not be used as a guide to hiking in the Grand Canyon. However, it is interesting from a historical point of view and as a general introduction to a particular area. Anyone interested in Harvey Butchart will likely find this book interesting. I read it with a topo map at hand to help me follow (in a general way) where Harvey went.

This is considered almost the Bible of Grand Canyon hiking books. Though I admire the author tremendously, the book is simply too outdated to be seriously used today. The text was fine in the 1970's or 80's, but trail conditions have changed and errors pop up repeatedly. This can have potentially fatal consequences for someone who relies on this book as the gospel truth.

For instance, the distance between the Bright Angel trail and the Colorado river is emphatically not 7.6 miles. Nor is it an additional 2.7 miles to Phantom Ranch from this point. This might seem like an inconsequential point unless you're a neophyte hiker who finds themself at the river and believes that it's about two and a half miles to Phantom Ranch. This can make someone underestimate their need for fluids or food. It will also screw up their timetable significantly.

The book was also written before the River Trail was blasted into existence and it results in some very confusing paragraphs which simply are long outdated at this point.

In addition, there isn't enough warnings about the dangers of hiking in the Canyon in the brutal heat of summer. Increasingly, unprepared people die in the Canyon because of heat stroke and biting off more than they can chew.

In short, this was once an excellent guide with relevant information, but there are too many errors and omissions to trust this book blindly. Especially when entering such a hostile enviornment as the canyon.

I feel that the author of this book really knew his stuff. The depth of description in which he delves into is amazing! He does not miss out on anything too small... in fact that is why I am giving this a 4 star review. I am an avid backpacker on the east coast with little-to-no experience with the Grand Canyon. The book assumes you are at least familiar with the area. That being said, he assumes so much familiarity that the book leaves out... i hate to say it... a lot of information on the trails of the area. I'd referrer this book to someone comfortable with their canyon experience and familiarity with the area. This book is a great source of off trial dayhikes, amazing caves, and too much history to mention! I'd give it 5 stars but for now with my experience with the canyon I'm going to have to give it 4. BTW got it used in FANTASTIC condition... 5 Stars for the seller!