Customer Reviews

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN - Trails Illustrated Map # 229 (National Geographic Maps: Trails Illustrated)

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The map is made of weatherproof material that looks like it will last a long time. The map is easy to read and has a lot of color-coding to make it easy to follow. I am very happy with the purchase.

They are very weatherproof. Mine has been through a lot and it is still in pretty good condition. I always take it on my frequent GSMNP hikes. It's very detailed and the trail distances seem to be right on. I highly recommend it to anyone who plans on hiking the Smokies.

Received this map brand new as expected. I always buy this map series because it is tough and waterproof and has not let me down so far in the SE mountains.

This is a very nice map made of sturdy material. It covers a larger area than I thought, making detail hard to see. It is also rather large. For a large overview of the park this is a great map. For a trail map- maybe not so much.

I used this map as a guide when my friend and i went on am 4 day backpacking trip from Fontana to Waterville on the AT(about 70mi). This map is very helpful in that it tells you where everything is, but be mindful when using the elevation profile. It can be misleading between the peaks.

It's LOUD. There is so much going on in here, its flabbergasting. They put many squares of information around the side, and its huge and floppy - I would have almost preferred they trim the fat and just give me a functional map for the trail. The durability is as desscribed, as is the mild waterproofing. Probably the best map I have seen so far for this region, but could be improved.

Very well done and complete map of Acadia National Park. A couple of dollars less expensive than the printed price on the map itself too. I think this map will be quite useful with a hand held GPS device to navigate the Acadia National Park. I am looking forward to enjoying the Park in the summer of 2012 with the purchased map, hand held GPS and the truck load of camping gear with my wife. Will probably up date this review next summer when I get to use the map.

Thanks again Amazon for a wonderful shopping experience

Darian Paganelli

I like the "waterproof" material (haven't tested it) enough to buy this for use in the field. This review refers to map 742 Lake Placid, High Peaks in the Adirondacks. I like the fact they work with the ADK mountain club in numbering the trails and supplying trail mileage from them, and all of the official trails and many herd paths are shown on the map. Sadly, some of the "official" herd paths are left out and the Seward, Santanoni and Dix ranges suffer with the lack of herd path information. I do have a huge gripe with the map in general though.

This is what an Adirondack 46'er who wants to climb the 46 high peaks has to use from Nat Geo, and unfortunately they did not care enough to focus in on this specific region and the most popular itinerary surrounding them. There is A LOT of map space here that deals with areas outside of where the 46 high peaks are clustered, and as a result to display it all the map uses an unhelpful scale of 1:75000. Reviewing the map, if you were purely interested in only the 46 high peaks, the map has a tremendous amount of wasted space. I would so far as to say 40% of the map is useless for 46'ers, and you could say about 50% of it is useless if you left out the Sewards and the Santanoni's. The map is also split in, again, a method unfriendly to 46'ers by forcing the Giant and Dix wilderness maps onto the backside of the map (once again combined with utterly useless areas north of Giant wilderness, the back map is actually 80% useless to 46'ers). Also, Whiteface Mountain and Esther are inexistant here.

I can understand this map is supposed to display a specific region but it would be nice and I think well deserved if the map were redesigned to focus more explicitly on the particular popularity of the core high peaks region. A wonderful compromise would be to simply picture the Western and Eastern, Dix and Giant zones of the high peak wilderness and nothing outside of those boundaries. This would allow for a better scale with precious needed detail. There is really no reason the core high peaks region could not have been displayed at 35k instead of 75k had they omitted areas of the park that could have easily been included in other maps. This map would quite honestly be a dream if they stretched from Western zone to Dix/Giant on the front and back, and it would be a much better survival tool for having done so. Most of the other "unnecessary" areas have only limited trails anyways, such as Long Lake, and well, the trail basically follows the lake. I don't need to know anything about Long Lake if I get lost on Allen Mt, frankly, I need greater topographical data of the core areas of the high peaks moreso then I need info on Long Lakes lean-to's 15 miles away.

My solution? Cut the map. I cut about 50% of it off and still have all the technical information I need on the sides I didn't cut. Even though the core area of the Eastern zone is barely larger than a 9x11 piece of paper, I would be carrying higher detail maps anyways. I think this is best used as a grand-scale overview map for quick reference, and even though the scale is not great I would prefer to use this over the ADK map if I had to actually bust out a compass in the rain to find where I am if I got lost. The ADK map would be destroyed within a minutes time of Adirondack rain, if this map holds up to its claims it would be superior for that reason alone.

I personally would recommend the ADK trail guide's own map, but the scale is not much better (1:62.5~) and it is not waterproof. It does however weigh half as much as the Nat geo map un-modified.

Trails Illustrated make great maps. They're very sturdy and easy to read. I also like the additional information that they offer such as park rules and area-specific safety tips. As other reviewers said, these maps tend to cover large regions; so one map comes packed with information, which brings us to the cons. The maps are big and heavy (for backpacking). I still take it anyway on my trips because I think the pros outweigh the cons.

Very sturdy map. I have bought this brand before and never been disappointed. You can fold any which way with no damage to map. Used it on the roads near the park as well as the trails.