Customer Reviews

Hiking Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks, 2nd (Regional Hiking Series)

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

 

 

For the last 4 years, I've had a summer job at Zion and have used this guide in hiking all but 2 of the trails listed in here. The trail guides are accurate and give a person an excellent idea of how difficult a trail is along with how interesting it is. Take it with you. It will help.

The book was chock full of great ideas and valuable information. It list every conceivable day trip/hike that you could take. There is one negative to the book and that is that the cover leads you to beleve that it will be full of colored photos and it does not. Sure there are photos to peruse, but they are all in B/W. This was dissappointing. But, this travel guide is indeed full of helpful advice to aide a first time visitor.

This guide book was extremely helpful especially for the relatively unused trails in the high country. I found the profile maps of each hike very helpful in planning for time and distance and elevation gain.

The book did a great job describing and the hikes, what to bring, and what to encounter, however the estimated times for the hikes seemed to be a bit off. For example "Angels Landing" which is one of the most popular hikes in Zion is said to take only two hours. My friend and I literally ran to the top of it and back, taking 1 hour and 30 minutes, passing lots of people along the way. When looking at other sources for the duration of hiking times, they gave the same hike 4 to 5 hours. So to sum it up, the book give great advice on the hikes in Zion, just plan on them taking longer than the estimated time.

I spent a week in Zion with a family group in July and found this book to be very useful. It got to be 100 degrees F most days and so accurate information was very important when we went up on the East Rim. I don't know how we would have ever found the trailhead for the Deertrap Mountain hike without the precise information in this book. Also, I took the book along to read to my companions as we went along - it added to our enjoyment and was a very good description of the terrain through which we passed. The book is also helpful for the hikes in the main canyon, but of course those trails are so well marked that you can leave the guidebook at home. I wouldn't want to do a rim hike without it.

We also used the book for a day trip to Cedar Breaks and again found it to be very accurate.

I am trying to get some background on the parks above and beyond what the official Park Service info is. I felt that this book provided more info.