Hiking Grand Staircase-Escalante and the Glen Canyon Region [Paperback]

Ron Adkison (Author)

Book Description

Series: Regional Hiking Series | Publication Date: November 1, 1998

The Glen Canyon region of southern Utah is a desert paradise of mesas, buttes, slickrock canyons, and boundless solitude. Much of the region is roadless, and the best way to explore this wilderness is to hike it. In Hiking Grand Staircase-Escalante and the Glen Canyon Region, you will find 59 detailed hike descriptions covering hundreds of miles of trails and canyoneering routes in this vast region. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Grand Gulch, Dark Canyon, Natural Bridges National Monument, and Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness are all included. This book provides detailed maps and tips on desert safety, coping with heat and dehydration, backcountry travel, driving remote desert roads, trailhead access and services. Whether you’re a casual day hiker or a seasoned trekker, use Hiking Grand Staircase-Escalante and the Glen Canyon Region to lead you on a journey through the incredible beauty of this landscape.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The Glen Canyon region, stretching 150 miles across southern Utah, is a land of outstanding scenery and excellent hiking opportunities. Hundreds of miles of trails and canyoneering routes lead to arches, natural bridges, lonely slickrock gorges, wooded mesas, and open desert valleys. This guidebook includes hikes in the newly-established Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. It focuses on many popular trails and routes and some lesser known ones in the Glen Canyon region. Hikes range from easy day trips to strenuous overnighters.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Falcon; 1st edition (November 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560446455
• ISBN-13: 978-1560446453
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #354,499 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #72 in Books > Travel > United States > States > Arizona

More About the Author

Ron Adkison, an avid hiker and backpacker, began his outdoor explorations at age six. Since then he has logged more than 12,000 trail miles in ten western states. He has walked every trail in this guide multiple times, to provide precise, firsthand information about the trails, as well as features of ecological and historical interest. When he's not on the trail, Ron and his wife, Nancy, live in the Rocky Mountains of southwest Montana.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Needs better maps, June 26, 2005

By 

Phil Loubere (san jose, ca usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hiking Grand Staircase-Escalante and the Glen Canyon Region (Paperback)

On trying to follow the guide to one of the hikes, the Yellow Rock/Box of Paria River, we were fortunate to meet a BLM ranger as we were about to set out. It became clear that we weren't where we thought we were, and had we continued on, would have entered a confusing and unmarked maze of canyons instead of the entrance to the Box. This is the fault of this book - the maps are poorly labeled and confusing, and the directions (which usually start out by referring you back to some other hike, a poor strategy for a guide book) were, in this instance, just plain wrong, giving incorrect mileage to the point where we should have been. The two locator maps at the front of the book are especially bad, the first oriented perpendicular to the other covering the east part of the region, the second one showing the western part. They should be combined into one map across both pages, show the monument and park boundaries and have some kind of legend, along with better labels.
What we ended up using as a reference for the rest of the trip, on which we did four hikes, was, in fact, a place mat from a breakfast place in Escalante, which turned out to be much better organized, concise and accurate. On the front is an easy-to-understand map, clearly labeled, and on the back are brief descriptions of the principal backroads and the hikes along each one. This handy little sheet is actually easily found in most businesses in the area, for free.
Of course, a restaurant placemat doesn't give the level of detail contained in Mr. Adkison's book, which has several useful features, including good categorical summaries for each hike such as elevation gain and loss (including a line graph depicting this), difficulty ratings, hiking time, etc. It was inaccurate in one of those categories for the Yellow Rock hike, stating that no permit was required; the ranger corrected us on this count as well.
If this book were reorganized in the same manner as the place mat, with the good map of the back roads - there are several key ones: The Burr Trail, Hell's Backbone, and Cottonwood Canyon - and then listed the hikes attainable from each one, then it would be a lot more useful.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Maps need improvement, but book is fine, October 13, 2007

By 

Christoph Geiss "ceg" (Hartford, CT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Hiking Grand Staircase-Escalante and the Glen Canyon Region (Paperback)

We used Hiking Grand Staircase-Escalante and the Glen Canyon Region for several hikes this summer and, despite some shortcomings, I would recommend it.
The trail descriptions are pretty realistic and give a good idea of what to expect on the hike. Based on these descriptions we picked our hikes and were never disappointed. The book describes the general character of the terrain, what you can expect to see, how difficult the hike is likely to be, etc., followed by a decent trail description.
Where the book needs improvement are the maps. The maps are OK to get a general idea, but NOT A SUBSTITUTE for proper planning of your trip. First they are a bit simplified (which is OK), second they are sometimes wrong (which can get you into trouble). The map for the Boulder Mail Trail, for example, has an incorrect scale bar which makes the hike appear much shorter than it really is (the text gives the correct information).
However, using this book as the sole information for your hike is not the smartest thing to begin with. In combination with the deLorme (or Benchmark) Utah Atlas and Gazetteer and a series of large scale topographic maps (USGS, Trails Illustrated) we never had any issues finding the trailhead or loosing the trail. So, consider this and similar books as a source of ideas, but do your homework, get the right maps etc. and you'll be fine.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Okay, but poorly written and lacking in descriptions, April 15, 2008

By 

E. Zamora "E.Z." (Utah) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hiking Grand Staircase-Escalante and the Glen Canyon Region (Paperback)

The book contains many good hiking routes, but lacks the kind of detail and descriptive writing about the amazing landscapes (waterfalls, canyons, rivers, prehistoric ruins, cliffs, and other landmarks in general) that you would expect from such an incredible area. I don't know if this is the author's fault or the publisher, but I'm inclined to avoid books from either in the future. Also, like other reviewers have said, the maps are cheesy, and not very useful. DO NOT go on a trip to the area with only this book - you need either a book with much better maps, or even better, a detailed topographical map. If you're looking for a guidebook on this "new" area, I suggest finding another book.