Customer Reviews

Best Easy Day Hikes Glacier and Waterton Lakes National Parks, 2nd (Best Easy Day Hikes Series)

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

 

 

Its construction is not as durable as one would like for a reference to carry with you while hiking, but what can one expect for that small an asking price? However, the descriptions and maps for each hike are easy to understand--even for the novice hiker. 25 easy hikes are included in the book, with distance, degree of difficulty, time required, and elevation change included. There are no pictures in the book, but still its very well done.

Best Easy Day Hikes for Glacier and Waterton Lakes National Parks is a bit misleading as a title. While there are easy hikes, some are far from it. For example, one hike is nine miles long with a 1200-foot climb while another is over 14 miles long. Fortunately, the distances and elevation changes are clearly marked in the description so it is easy to select those you are willing and able to tackle while leaving the others for the more adventurous. There are also maps for each hike but it sometimes took me a while to use them. The actual trail wasn't always well defined within the larger area portrayed on the map and I often found the trailheads especially difficult to spot. It was not a major problem as I always worked it out in the end but it is an area that could use a bit of improvement.

There are 28 hikes listed and they are broken down into 5 geographic areas of the two parks. My wife and I did 2-3 hikes from each area and found the descriptions to be both helpful and largely accurate. The book is small enough to easily fit in a hip pocket and held up very well during a full week of heavy usage. Color photos would have been a nice addition but that would have made the book both larger and heavier which is not ideal for a pocket guide. Overall, this was a great purchase at an extremely reasonable price.

For less than ten dollars, one would be hard pressed to call this a waste of money, as it does provide a great deal of information on 28 different hikes throughout the park. That said, it doesn't provide much more information than the one can pick up at any of the ranger stations, [...]. Its main advantage is organization, as you're not futzing around with a bunch of double sided pieces of paper and several newsletters, trying to figure out which hike to go on and how to get there.

Used this a lot to plan day hikes and did many of the listed hikes while at Glacier in July 2008. Distances, times seemed reasonably accurate and comments a good synopsis for the trail. Doesn't rate hikes, "easy", "difficult", etc; but most in Glacier are in the easy-intermediate range anyway. Relatively small size made it easy to take along or fit in pants pocket. Trails in Glacier are well used/marked so you don't really need it during hiking, but I liked it for planning my hikes or referencing when having to change plans during the day. Maybe only thing to add are a few pictures, which can help decide if you want to take a certain trail or not.

We found this book to be a great resource for trying to cover all areas of the park in only 5 days. We were able to do some hiking in all the main areas of the park and really get to take in some of the great beauty of the park that you just can't see from the road!

I used this to plan a week at Glacier and every hike was like it said it would be. We enjoyed it so much we went back for another week a year later because we had more hikes we wanted to do.

Because I own a lot of Falcon Guidebooks, it was easy for me to purchase this one. I am planning a trip to Glacier in the near future and have been to the park several times before, but not hiking. At the time of my last visit, hiking was not in my vocabulary.

I always try to familiarize myself with any guidebook when I purchase it even when my trip might be years in the future. That way I am comfortable with the location of each trail, the description, length, and time required to make the hike.

The book seems to be very comprehensive in nature and the information seems to be very accurate, to my prior knowledge of the park. Once I have taken my trip, I will come back and leave a more detailed review of the book.

I also plan on visiting the Canadian side of the park and will include that in my future review.

If you plan on hiking in Glacier National Park or the Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada, I would highly recommend this guidebook.

This book accompanied us on every hike. It even went through a waterfall. Described hikes perfectly. We referred to it daily to select hikes.

My wife and I spent a week at Glacier, doing longer hikes (10+ miles). We bought this and the Moon Glacier NP handbook. The Moon book was much more detailed and helpful. This small booklet would be fine for deciding which trails to take if you only have 1 to 2 days to visit the park, especially trails right off Going to the Sun Road.

Time is at a premium on vacation. I feel that we will see some great views in Glacier using this book and stay within our vacation time period. Thanks for writing this with all the details given. Very helpful.