Customer Reviews

Guide to the National Park Areas - Western States (4th ed)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

We recently retired and bought our first motorhome. Wanting to visit the national parks we bought several guides to help us on our trip. These two were the best of the lot. The first couple of pages in each book include a map showing all of the parks in the country including some small places we would never have known about. We recommend the Scott's two guides.

I found this guide to be a very useful when we traveled to the western states of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California. Especially helpful are the descriptions of smaller parks that we would probably have missed. Natural Bridges National Monument in southern Utah comes to mind. As recommended by the authors, we first stopped at the visitor centers and asked how to best see the parks. I highly recommend both this western guide and the companion eastern guide to anyone who plans to visit our national parks.

Their previous editions of these volumes were great and very practical. We carried them (both Eastern and Western editions) in our motorhome as we travel, and are looking forward to this new (and hopefull updated) edition. They do the best job of any on describing the National Park system, and it's a helpful reference for the traveler.

My wife and I found the Scott's guide to be an excellent reference during our first try at visiting the national parks. Especially worthwhile is the coverage of many small areas that are included. We highly recommend this book and the accompanying guide to the eastern park areas.

I agree with the reviewers who say this book is less than complete. Very sketchy descriptions. Fromer's guide is MUCH BETTER.

This book has so many faults and so few good points that it is difficult to know where to start with a review. To begin with, there is no index. An inexcusable oversight, in my opinion. Next there are the "detailed" maps of the parks. None of these has topography, so if you look at the Grand Canyon, you are not able to tell where the Phantom Ranch is in relation to the canyon depths. Is it at the bottom of the canyon (yes, it is)or on the North Rim? The maps don't have a legend on each map, but there is an overall legend at the front of the book, necessitating constant referral back to the legend page when you need to look up symbols on the maps. There is just no excuse for this in today's world of computer graphics and desktop publishing. In addition to these faults, the text itself is far too spare. Many parts of the parks mentioned are so cursorily reviewed, that anyone who hasn't visited Lake Mead, for instance and seen for themselves, would never know from the book that there are large tracts in the Recreation Area on the Utah (North Rim) side of the Grand Canyon. Descriptions run to a couple of paragraphs, with precious little information of any value. All in all, I would not recommend this book to anyone who is at all interested in any aspect of the National Parks and Monuments. I was very disappointed.

This guide was a present for our 40th anniversary. We found it very useful and highly recommend it to other travelers who wish to learn more about our national parks. We didn't even know about many of the parks that are included.

This is a very complete guide. I discovered many park areas I didn't know about so that we were able to visit several additional sites during our recent trip to Yellowstone. Especially useful are the maps of each park.

This book has so many faults and so few good points that it is difficult to know where to start with a review. To begin with, there is no index. An inexcusable oversight, in my opinion. Next there are the "detailed" maps of the parks. None of these has topography, so if you look at the Grand Canyon, you are not able to tell where the Phantom Ranch is in relation to the canyon depths. Is it at the bottom of the canyon (yes, it is)or on the North Rim? The maps don't have a legend on each map, but there is an overall legend at the front of the book, necessitating constant referral back to the legend page when you need to look up symbols on the maps. There is just no excuse for this in today's world of computer graphics and desktop publishing. In addition to these faults, the text itself is far too spare. Many parts of the parks mentioned are so cursorily reviewed, that to anyone who hasn't visited Lake Mead, for instance and seen for themselves, would never know from the book that there are large tracts in the Recreation Area on the Utah (North Rim) side of the Grand Canyon. Descriptions run to a couple of paragraphs, with precious little information of any value. All in all, I would not recommend this book to anyone who is at all interested in any aspect of the National Parks and Monuments. I was very disappointed.