Customer Reviews

Road Guide to Death Valley National Park, Updated Edition

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

So, you have two days to "do" Death Valley. How do you go about it? Death Valley is huge. The main basin is 120 miles long and 5-10 miles wide. But the park also includes the Saline Valley and parts of several mountain ranges. However you plan your visit, you will be in for a lot of driving and this updated Decker guide is a good place to start.

This book has a lot going for it. Where else are you going to quickly learn about basin and range topography, and the fact that the valley floor in Death Valley continues to sink even as it fills with sediment each year? A good popular geography text would have that information, of course, but not in 48 pages and not with a scenic tour guide included. The photos are also stunning, so if you can't go right away, you can at least get this book and see what you are missing.

Centered around Furnace Creek, this book describes two driving tours: one to the north and one to the south. In the course of two days, you will manage to see the bulk of the park highlights: Scotty's Castle, Harmony Borax works, Dante's viewpoint, Salt Creek, Uhebe's crater, and many more. I particularly liked the fact that this guidebook included suggestions for short hikes along the way and an appendix listing additional trails and less frequently travelled roads. Indeed, I cannot think of any negatives with this book(let) so I am giving it 5 stars. Buy it and go enjoy one of America's premier parks.

I would recommend a guide to get the most from your Death Valley trip. We entered the park from the south, from Pahrump, where the traffic is lighter and the landscape quite fasinating. The guide was very useful and lead us to sites we might have bypassed.

We have used four of the Deckers' national park road guides so far and found them all to be worthwhile--especially at their low price. The guides help ensure that you don't miss the "must see" places. This is especially useful if you have to allocate your time carefully.

This thin book is stuffed with good information about the park. It leads off with an overview map of the park listing the readily accessible highlights. The authors inform you in the preface that the book is crafted for the visitor that is only taking two days to see the largest National Park in the Continental U.S. The preface also tells why this book is inadequate for the visitor that wants to get off the beaten path - "...if driving on gravel makes you nervous...". Some of the most interesting places in the park are on seldom maintained gravel roads. You will never see them if you don't get off the pavement and spend more than two days in the park.

The book concisely discusses the geology and history of the area. It also briefly touches on the flora and fauna. For people desiring more information about the area the authors provide a well considered reference section. Many excellent drawings and photographs punctuate the text.

This book is an excellent primer on Death Valley but if you really want to explore and understand Death Valley and its surrounds you will need to augment this with other books.

We spent a week in Death Valley National Park in early January, picking up several books along the way to help us find places to explore and trails to hike. I picked up "Road Guide to Death Valley National Park" toward the end of our trip, but I wish we had found it sooner. In simple, clear language, this little book answered a lot of the questions we were stacking up about the geology, fauna, flora, climate and history of Death Valley National Park.

The book describes three driving tours, one heading south from Furnace Creek toward Dante's View (which was closed due to snow and ice during our visit), another from Furnace Creek south toward Badwater (the lowest point in North America at 280 feet below sea level), and a third running north from Furnace Creek to Scotty's Castle and Ubehebe Crater. Each driving tour includes mileposts that identify sites of interest, many of which are unique to the book and can't be found on road signs or in other commentaries on the Valley. And of course, you can always stop and get out of your car to hike down one of the many unusual canyons that flow into Death Valley--my favorite was Mosaic Canyon, which is formed out of water-polished white marble (see p. 43).

If you are headed to Death Valley (and you should--it's spectacular), pick up this helpful pamphlet for a great preview of what you'll be seeing and to help you plan your explorations. The book's color photographs give a fair impression of Death Valley's rugged beauty--they are, of course, just a preview of the real thing.

When I first received this book and saw how small it was I thought,no wonder it costs only $6.95.But once I got to reading it I could see why it got so many high ratings.No wasted space here.It has all the basic information you'll need for a trip to Death Valley.It's got beautiful pictures,driving distances,side trips,food and lodging,hiking trails,suggested books and websites,maps and all very easy to read.And the size makes it easy to take anywhere.For my 7 day trip to Death Valley it suited me just fine.It's a 5-star bargain!!!

This guidebook was perfect for our 5 day trip to Death Valley. It was small & compact and had all we needed to tour all the best sites and hikes. It gave information on the routes, mileage, had pictures, etc.

I don't know about you, but unless I am going to stay somewhere for a very long time (like practically live there), I don't want some guide that weighs one pound and is hundreds of pages. This guide is surprisingly small but just perfect to make sure you get the total experience of Death Valley in a day or two. I visited Death Valley three years ago and later heard about Mosaic Canyon. I missed seeing the polished rocks and marble pathways! This guide is easy to use and will help you plan ahead or you can even wait until you get there! The guide will definitely enhance your experience. I'm on my way for a repeat trip in just nine more days! I will certainly see the things I missed the first time.

I bought this booklet for our recent Death Valley trip. It was perfect for helping us plan out our trip - gave a bit of information about each spot but was short enough and small enough to keep as a ready reference while driving through the park. If you have only a couple of days to explore Death Valley, this is the guide for you!

This book is tiny, more like a pamphlet and I didn't find it very informative. I was planning a trip to Death Valley to spend 5 days there. It may be more useful to someone simply driving through. The park is enormous, there was much I wanted to see that I didn't have time for in 5 days. If you are interested in going to Death Valley, I recommend staying a week and reading Death Valley and the Northern Mohave: A Visitor's Guide by William C Tweed. It is a beautiful book that gives a wealth of information on the area.