Hiking New Mexico (Falcon Guide) [Paperback]

Laurence Parent (Author)

Book Description

Series: Falcon Guide | Publication Date: April 1996

New Mexico is blessed with a striking and surprisingly diverse landscape-a paradise for hikers. It includes White Sands National Monument, the desert country of Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and the pine-forested Sangre de Cresto Mountains. Forests blanket more than a quarter of the state, and the southern extension of the Rocky Mountains boasts several snow-capped peaks over 13,000 feet. Given this array of hiking possibilities, Hiking New Mexico should be the first thing to go in the hiker's pack. Hiking New Mexico, formerly The Hiker's Guide to New Mexico, is unmatched in its detail and scope. Seventy hikes are described by noted writer and outdoor photographer Laurence Parent. They include some of the state's most popular hikes, such as the La Luz Trail, as well as many undiscovered trips in the San Mateo and Peloncillo Mountains. Detailed maps and beautiful black-and-white photos supplement the text. There are also sections on backcountry safety, outdoor ethics, and hiking with children. Day hikers and veteran backpackers alike will find Hiking New Mexico an invaluable sourcebook on trips and trails in New Mexico's magnificent backcountry.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Revised and Updated. Author and photographer Laurence Parent updates this invaluable sourcebook with 21 new hikes, some popular and others unknown. Plus, the addition of elevation graphs makes it easy to determine the level of difficulty of each hike. Also, many new photos depict New Mexico's diverse landscape.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Falcon Pr Pub Co; 2 edition (April 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560444290
• ISBN-13: 978-1560444299
• Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,137,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent Beginners Guide, May 28, 2003

By 

"crmaschar" (Albuquerque, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hiking New Mexico (rev) (Paperback)

This is your typical Falcon book. It does give you a good overview of many popular (and a few obscure) hikes in the state -but with info and maps that sometimes are lacking. And of course, the size of NM and its numerous wilderness oppurtunities makes this or any hiking book attempting to cover the whole state rather ambitious. This is a general guide by neccessity.

If you know what area of NM you would like to concentrate your exploring in, I would recommend one of the area specific Falcon guides (Gila, Carlsbad, Aldo Leopold, etc) or a book by a different publisher instead of this overview. These other books offer a lot more detail and don't have to skip popular and obvious localized hikes for a lack of space.

I consider myself adept at reading maps and directions (what guy doesn't think that?) but I found some of the directions and maps in the book to be overly simplified or outdated. (As compared to "100 Hikes in New Mexico" - which is a better generalized guide). I particularly ran into this with the trails described in the White Mt. Wilderness. This also re-taught me that no guide book is no substitute for a good trail map if an extended backpacking trip is planned.

After these critiques of the book, I do have to say it is a strong general guide in many ways that will give you a decent overview of NM hiking oppurtunities. The author's descriptions of trail difficulties are accurate and reasonable and the elevation charts in Falcon guides are very helpful. Aside from the instance mentioned above - the general descriptions of the hikes and the directions to the trailheads tend to be accurate.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for Beginner, September 18, 2001

By 

apoem "apoem" (Bosque Farms, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Hiking New Mexico (rev) (Paperback)

I found this book to be very useful.

I particularly liked the start of each hike information- This helps me to decide in a quick second whether I want to read the rest of the information and consider this hike or not. The information includes the level of difficulty, location, attractions, maps to get, and other important information. The maps were very useful in determining starting points and ending points for planning purposes.

I found that the level of difficulty was accurate. This is very important to me because I'm a non hiker to very easy type of hiker.

My only comment would be that many of the pictures didn't add to the text and could have been left out.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Made for a great trip!, September 14, 2009

By 

M. Short (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hiking New Mexico (rev) (Paperback)

This was a good overview of available hikes in NM. We used it for several different hikes on a 1 week hiking trip near Santa Fe. There was only one hike that we found to be a little confusing in the description...leading us a small distance down an incorrect trail cut-off. But when we re-read the description after following the correct trail it seemed much clearer, so this could have been more our fault than the book. Definitely better than the many NM trip books I viewed in the bookstore prior to ordering this one!