Hiking the Big Sur Country: The Ventana Wilderness [Paperback]

Jeffrey P. Schaffer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1988

Opportunities abound for hikers and equestrians in Big Sur Country, its adjacent state parks, coastline, and public beaches. Here is the guide to exploring 260 square miles of wilderness. Contains 25 accurate, 2-color topo maps.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Think of Big Sur and you most likely conjure images of sea-swept cliffs and expansive ocean views, the hideout of Beat poets and dropouts. To the east, however, is a surprisingly bountiful landscape of forests and mountains traversed by hiking trails. These trails follow cool canyon streams or switch back up sun-baked peaks. It's a beautiful region that sees far less use than other more publicized areas. Jeffrey Schaffer's guide to the Big Sur country, complete with trail descriptions and topographic maps, can help you discover this more remote territory of a fabled land.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Wilderness Press; 1st edition (May 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0899970834
• ISBN-13: 978-0899970837
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,560,562 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great but needs updating, August 24, 2000

By 

Vincent Manning (Paso Robles, ca USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hiking the Big Sur Country: The Ventana Wilderness (Paperback)

Having made about thirty different trips into the Ventana wilderness over the last several years using this great guide book, I've come to appreciate the authors maps. Regular topographic maps from the USGS do not show many trails in the Ventana or inaccuratly shown. The author has plotted the trails in detail onto USGS topos (shrunk to book size which means you must look closely, but you can still discern every contour clearly). The trail descriptions are as detailed and informative as one can expect for a book this old. Fires, El Nino's and withdrawal of funds for trail maintenance inevitably change the accuracy of Schaeffers descriptions. Nevertheless there are still many useful descriptions and comments. If you are serious about exploring this rugged widerness, the book would be well worth it for its maps alone.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quite good, but now inaccurate in places, February 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Hiking the Big Sur Country: The Ventana Wilderness (Paperback)

Big Sur has some wonderful hiking trails, and this book provides very good, detailed descriptions of most of them. Because it was published several years ago, however, and some of the trails have been damaged in storms over the past few years, some of its information is now inaccurate, even with the several-page addendum at the back of the book. For example, the trail to Mount Manuel is "closed" -- though I understand that people still occasionally hike it. Also, during a recent visit, we were unable to cross the Big Sur River in order to hike the spectacular-looking Panorama and Hidden Trails in Andrew Molera State Park. There was no bridge and no place to ford without considerable risk of mishap, a state of affairs the book doesn't seem to consider. Of course, these inaccuracies are the fault of Mother Nature rather than of the author, and any hiker who isn't prepared for less-than-ideal trail conditions probably shouldn't be hiking in the first place. Nevertheless, to be really useful to hikers, the book should be updated yet again.

I share another reviewer's frustration with the topo maps near the back of the book. They're a bit hard to use because many of the trails, even the shorter trails, run onto several pages, making it necessary to flip back and forth between pages. The topos also have tiny print, undoubtedly a consequence of having to scale them down to the book's size. There must be a way to include more hiker-friendly maps -- even hand-drawn, trail-specific maps of the kind found in the Lonely Planet guides, while not providing much topographic detail, would help hikers get more of the "big picture" of a trail's length and proximity to roads and other trails.

All in all a good guide to a delightful region.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Many changes to the wilderness..., July 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Hiking the Big Sur Country: The Ventana Wilderness (Paperback)

I first purchased Mr. Shaffer's book back in '94 and have jokingly referred to it as "The Liar's Guide to Hiking the Ventana Wilderness". I found the book fairly accurate for the more popular trails (Carmel River Trail, Pine Ridge Trail, Skinner's Ridge), but somewhat misleading for the lesser-traveled trails. The book is in SEVERE need of updating to correct some of the inaccuracies and mainly, because over 100,000 acres in the heart of Ventana were scorched in the Kirk Complex/Tassajarra fires of 1999. The fires resulted in many of the trails being burnt almost out of existence or severly damaged. Despite its shortcomings, however, the book is worth it for first-timers wishing to hike Ventana.