Hiking Death Valley: A Guide to Its Natural Wonders and Mining Past [Paperback]

Michel Digonnet (Photographer)

Product Details

• Paperback: 542 pages
• Publisher: Wilderness Press; 1 edition (January 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965917800
• ISBN-13: 978-0965917803
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #56,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #59 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Natural Resources
  • #63 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Hiking & Camping > Excursion Guides

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive guide to exploring Death Valley, February 11, 2001

By 

"orangenomad" (Altadena, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hiking Death Valley: A Guide to Its Natural Wonders and Mining Past (Paperback)

This is a superb book that provides a large amount of exceptionally useful information about Death Valley. Having visited the park multiple times over the last 2 years, I had become familiar with most of the general areas and some of the less-known gems.

This book takes it to the next level for me. It is excellently laid out, totally comprehensive regarding the hikes it discusses and has well-chosen photos, genuinely useful maps and lots of interesting illustrations. I particularly liked the sections on the Last Chance Range and the Panamints.

Most importantly the author exactly captures the appeal of the place - the space, the astonishing world of rock, the light and the solitude - and does a nice job of emphasizing the need for us desert users to practice the "minimum impact" approach without ramming it down our throats.

Finally, he has wisely left out a few "secrets" - it'd be tough to explore if *everything* was already in a book!

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive, September 8, 2005

By 

CJB (Salt Lake City, UT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hiking Death Valley: A Guide to Its Natural Wonders and Mining Past (Paperback)

The author, Mr Digonnet (or do you say "Doggonit" or "Dagnabit") is a great lover of the Death Valley region of the Mojave Desert, and seems to have dedicated a good portion of his life to studying it.
Just about all the information is there to plan a lifetime of hiking in this region. After a few brief chapters dealing with natural (e.g., geography) and human history, plant and animal life, desert hiking tips, and NPS and other services, we get into the meat of the text--the various regions, which are divided as such:
Grapevine Mountains
Funeral Mountains
Black Mountains
Valley Floor and Alluvial Fans
Last Chance Range
Cottonwood Mountains
Panamint Mountains
Eureka, Saline, and Panamint Valleys
After a brief overview of each region (which includes a list of suggested hikes lasting between a few hours and two days), there are sub-chapters exploring significant areas within these larger regions. For instance, under the section called Last Chance Range, there is a piece about the Racetrack Valley. There is some general information about Racetrack Valley, such as road access, shortest and longest hikes, and main attractions. This is followed with five pages of more specific text, two black and white photos, elevations of various sites, and a map. This more or less repeats for every area of Death Valley. (I counted 69 total.) Understandably, with Death Valley being by far the largest national park in the lower 48, the book is quite comprehensive.
The only major thing I would have liked to have seen, a ploy that would have better put the whole book together and made it easier to navigate, would have been a better, more comprehensive map of the whole Death Valley region, in color, and marked to show exactly where each book-chaptered region and smaller area is. The whole book could then stem from such a map, a rock-steady reference point. Instead, the book contains only one map of the whole region, and it's not very big or detailed. For this reason, you have to really dig in and read each section to figure out where it is, and many hikers don't want to have to do that. They'd rather have a book that's clear to navigate and find things quickly, and then if they want to read further and get more detail, they can do that as well.
In summary, Hiking Death Valley is a thorough view of Death Valley and its endless hikes, but it is a bit cumbersome to plow through, and it needs stronger reference points.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars hot feet to hell!, January 18, 2000

By 

[e-mail] - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hiking Death Valley: A Guide to Its Natural Wonders and Mining Past (Paperback)

This book is a staggering achievement, the crystallization of one person's adventuring on foot in one of the harshest terrains in the USA. The breadth of the book is amazing; the author travelled many routes that have been little-explored and some that appear nowhere else but here. I remain in awe of his knowledge and perseverence. The writing is clear, witty, and most importantly for foot travellers he doesn't give away all the secrets of the places he highlights. Containing detailed maps, the variety of one day and multi-day excursions allow for all experience levels from novice to superjock. His advice on hiking in hot conditions is the best anywhere. A must-have book for any desert rat.