A Hiking Guide To Cedar Mesa [Paperback]

Peter Francis Tassoni (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 195 pages
• Publisher: University of Utah Press (May 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874806801
• ISBN-13: 978-0874806809
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #924,961 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good News - Bad News, March 14, 2004

By 

Thomas S. Budlong "Tom Budlong" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Hiking Guide To Cedar Mesa (Paperback)

Bad news first.
-- Directions to trail heads are infuriatingly compressed, hard to read, and in some places silly (ex: Major state route paved highway intersections are identified with GPS coordinates.)
-- Despite the 2001 copyright, 7-1/2' maps names are not given, but the obsolete and no-longer-available 15' maps are given.
-- Some of the detail maps are not oriented north-up -- hard to use for our north-up oriented minds. Worse yet, the maps don't say where north is, despite the north arrow in the map legend that lies, since it always points up. Hard to orient yourself, even after you discover the lying arrow.
-- The maps have no scale.
-- No index. Unpardonable sin, especially in these days of computers.

OK, now good-bad news:
-- Lots of GPS coordinates. But they are in a table following each route description, not embedded in the description. So you have to flip pages back and forth, and try to figure which set of coordinates apply to which text passage.
-- This is the only book that covers the area efficiently. Mike Kelsey's books cover larger areas. (Perhaps there are others that I have not found.)

Ready for some good news?:
-- It appears appropriately comprehensive. I say appropriate, since it is not totally comprehensive about the area. This leaves room for independent exploration, and does not divulge secret last best places.
-- Use the nicely made table and overview map starting on p.45 to efficiently sort through the walks he describes in the rest of the book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Buy the Kelsey guide instead, April 15, 2007

By 

R. Foust (New Mexico, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Hiking Guide To Cedar Mesa (Paperback)

I recently completed an outing to the Cedar Mesa/Comb Ridge area for which I had specifically purchased this guidebook. On first glance it appears more comprehensive then the Kelsey "Non-Technical" hiking guide, but first impressions can be deceiving. Most annoying were the UTM co-ordinates. Aside from the fact that they are inaccurate, see below, they are also largely worthless. An example from the "Fish Mouth Cave" description includes these handy co-ordinates: carpark-0,620,633E;4,142,890N, 1st Alcove-none, 2nd Alcove-none, Fish Mouth Cave-none, carpark-0,620,633E;4,142,890N! Why bother? Kelsey has no UTMs at all, but he obviates their need by providing accurate and helpful written descriptions of the hikes he describes. The Tassoni descriptions are, imho, MUCH less helpful. Kelsey also provides clear, color "fotographs" (Kelsey spelling--kind of annoying, really) of the features/attractions on the hikes he describes. Page 80 of the Tassoni guide includes a picture of the Abajos mislabled as the La Salles, and p.85 features a picture of Comb Wash-somewhere. In one fell swoop Tassoni has become inaccurate AND irrelevant! Oh, the Tassoni pics are also grainy B&W images of the wrong, irrelevant feature. The Tassoni guide is not entirely unhelpful, but your money would be MUCH better spent on the Kelsey guide.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent guidebook for Cedar Mesa hiking, March 28, 2003

By 

Peggie (Denver, Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Hiking Guide To Cedar Mesa (Paperback)

I found this excellent book at the library. I was going to Cedar Mesa for a few days the following week with a group of adults and kids from western Colorado. I was not familiar with the area, although I'd lived in Utah for 6 years in the 80's. The author has the hikes divided into car, day, and backpack hikes with ratings for difficulty and time required to complete them. Each hike has a description, as well as GPS info. He has 64 hikes listed. We did one shorter day hike (SF Mule Canyon) on arrival and spent about 3 hours exploring a "car" hike area which had many ruins tucked into the cliffs (Mule Canyon Cave Towers). The ruins were accessible beneath the cliffs, though access is not straight forward, but not dangerous either. In the book the author says there is no route down to these, but we were able to get to them, including my 9 year old daughter. Perhaps he is reluctant to encourage people to climb down to them. If I return to the area, I would purchase this book to plan and use there. I'd also purchase the topo maps. Have fun.