Customer Reviews

Hiking Colorado's Uncompahgre Wilderness (Regional Hiking Series)

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

 

 

This part of Colorado was new to me. This book was an excellent introduction to the area. My husband and I will be returning to the area this summer with this book as our main guide. I may add a few topo maps to go along with it, but this is suggested in the book. It has a great deal of helpful information when describing the difficulty of the hikes, whether or not it is well marked or not. This information all helped for me to choose a couple of wonderful hikes. The book also lets you know which trails are more popular, therefore more crowded.

Like the other Falcon hiking guides, this one covers all of the key route information - overall a solid reference work. However, in using it last month I encountered one important piece of misinformation that ruined an entire day. On p. 144 the author says that Alpine Road out of Lake City is "rough but passable in most passenger cars." Don't you believe it. You might make it, then again, you might not. I'm not a bit shy about driving on unimproved roads in the mountains, but after six miles of white nuckles I came to the last of many points where I wondered if I would lose my transaxle, gave up, and had to back down two hundred yards to a turnaround. Do not go up this road without a high clearance vehicle, ideally one with 4WD. I had to scrub my trip out of the trailhead at the end of Alpine Road, and it leads me to question the other roads the author describes as "rough but passable in most passenger cars." Again, the book as a whole was quite reliable, but it lost two stars on that rock strewn road.

At first we thought this book might be written by some lost Colorado hippie looking for his guitar. We were very surpised to find great trails that follow the beautiful Colorado mountains at there best. We will try the trails by Ouray first.

Before I give the details, let me make two points. First, I am a pretty seasoned hiker, having hiked in many national parks and national forests throughout the US with my wife and two children. That said, we used this book to guide us on only one trail, so it is admittedly a limited use of the book.

The first problem with the book is that it provides no data regarding elevation gains in the hikes. So you are totally reliant on the author's judgement of whether a trail is easy, medium or hard. Well, my wife, my two childen and I decided to take an "easy" trail called Storm Gulch to Baldy Peak. This 7 mile hike was anything but "easy". We later found out that the elevation gain was more than 2,000 feet with some very steep parts. I have many other hiking books, and none would have called this an easy hike.

The second problem is that the book was inaccurate. We followed the book to a tee. It is nicely descriptive. But unfortunately, the descriptions were not for our intended trail, but instead were for another trail. There was no indication in the book whatsoever that there was even a second trail out there. On top of that, this unknown trail took us two miles to the east of where the book thought we would end up. So, what was supposed to be an "easy" 7 mile trip with my family turned into an 8 mile grueling hike during afternoon thunderstorms - and we didn't even making it to Baldy Peak.

If you get this book, make sure you get a topo map as well and double check everything!!