Features over 50 hikes in Virginia's largest national park.
Hiking Shenandoah National Park, 3rd
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Book Description
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
For more than twenty-five years, FalconGuide® has set the standard for outdoor recreation guidebooks. Written by top outdoors experts and enthusiasts, each guide invites you to experience the endless adventure and rugged beauty of the great outdoors.
Hiking Shenandoah National Park features fifty-nine of Shenandoah's finest trails - from short day hikes to overnight adventures. With this comprehensive guide, veteran hikers Bert and Jane Gildart provide all the information you need to get the most out of hiking Virginia's majestic Shenandoah National Park.
Look inside to find:
Hiking Shenandoah National Park features fifty-nine of Shenandoah's finest trails - from short day hikes to overnight adventures. With this comprehensive guide, veteran hikers Bert and Jane Gildart provide all the information you need to get the most out of hiking Virginia's majestic Shenandoah National Park.
Look inside to find:
Hikes suited to every ability
Mile-by-mile directional cues
Difficulty ratings, trail contacts, fees/permits, and best hiking seasons
An index of hikes by category - from Easy Day Hikes to Hikes to See Waterfalls
Invaluable trip-planning information, including local lodging and campgrounds
About the Author
Bert and Jane Gildart are hikers, writers, and photographers specializing in outdoor recreation. They live in Bigfork, Montana.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By H. Fogg
Format:Paperback
NOTICE READERS OF THESE REVIEWS:
seems the reviews for the 1998 edition is the same reviews for the 3rd edition (Jan'06), I'm sure there's been updates and corrections in the past 8 years. (different ISBN numbers)
more comments added 9-27-2006:
I'm beginning to appreciate this book the more I use it.
Table of contents lists all the hikes in order of MilePost on Skyline Dr.
Each Hike # has the Milepost at starting Trailhead, difficulty, traffic,
and other useful info. Then a description of the hike, a graph chart of
the Topo vertical change, and signicant 'encounters' broken down to .01
of a mile. and of course a "Trail Map"
But wait there's more: Dont overlook the APPENDIX in the back,
where each hike is categorized by difficulty (Easy, Moderate, Strenuous)
and by type (Views and Waterfalls). SO, in my case, instead of reading
every single hike in order, I jumped to the Appendix and planned
all my Waterfalls hikes.
Aug'06
I have the 3rd edition, and it helps fill-in the gaps to the waterfalls books of virgina I bought. I like hiking to waterfalls, and this book adds more hiking details, than the waterfalls books.
Any one interested in hiking trails in SNP, can also access the National park service web page and choose Shenandoah and they have trail "maps".
seems the reviews for the 1998 edition is the same reviews for the 3rd edition (Jan'06), I'm sure there's been updates and corrections in the past 8 years. (different ISBN numbers)
more comments added 9-27-2006:
I'm beginning to appreciate this book the more I use it.
Table of contents lists all the hikes in order of MilePost on Skyline Dr.
Each Hike # has the Milepost at starting Trailhead, difficulty, traffic,
and other useful info. Then a description of the hike, a graph chart of
the Topo vertical change, and signicant 'encounters' broken down to .01
of a mile. and of course a "Trail Map"
But wait there's more: Dont overlook the APPENDIX in the back,
where each hike is categorized by difficulty (Easy, Moderate, Strenuous)
and by type (Views and Waterfalls). SO, in my case, instead of reading
every single hike in order, I jumped to the Appendix and planned
all my Waterfalls hikes.
Aug'06
I have the 3rd edition, and it helps fill-in the gaps to the waterfalls books of virgina I bought. I like hiking to waterfalls, and this book adds more hiking details, than the waterfalls books.
Any one interested in hiking trails in SNP, can also access the National park service web page and choose Shenandoah and they have trail "maps".
26 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book offers literally dozens of hikes throughout the Shenandoah National Park. We bought it -- at Shenandoah -- for that exact reason. We had gone out casually hiking on our own, without guides, and wanted book so that we could plan hikes better, and hike to some of the falls in the park.
Our first foray into the Shenandoah with the book as our guide was to Rose River Falls, pp. 86. This is a 4 mile, moderate hike, in a loop. Essentially, you drive to mile 49, park, cross the street, and walk a mile or so, and there the loop is for you to hike.
Or so the book says. It turns out that this is not the case at all. It describes a sharp right at a blue blaze. The first blue blaze, which is on your right, is also a right turn. It is not the correct right turn. In fact, it takes you to Shenandoah's Dark Falls, which are very popular. However, they also constitute -- only the trip up, mind you, which is where this inaccuracy deposits you -- a 'strenuous' hike. We hike one weekend a month, sometimes 3 weekends a month. We live in the area.
Our second foray, again using the book, was this time much better prepared. I brought with us a pedometer and a compass. We calibrated them before leaving, and set out on our hike. This time was for the Hawksbill Summit (pp. 84). Drive to mile 46, park, walk 100 yards, make a left at the white slashes, and proceed along the AT through the loop.
This did not happen. As it turns out, we hiked a full thousand feet (that is, 333 yards), and did not see a single white blaze. Nor a single white slash. We walked back down the path, and had a look. We had not, I am sad to say, missed anything. There are no slashes within a thousand feet of the road. There is no fork to the left, to the right, or anything. As it turns out, this time, we were presented with a sign from the park service. The turn on to the Hawksbill trail is .4 miles from the road. That's twice what we walked, 2,000 feet. Somehow the author of the book managed to confuse "100 yards" and "700 yards".
This is simply inexcusable. Hikers can get (and do get, as it turns out) lost due to this horrendously inaccurate information. I'm not sure what the other reviewers were hiking, but our luck (0 for 2) has been abysmal. We're getting another guide, and we're not going to trust that one without a GPS.
Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.
Two stars given because it does include almost every trail in the park -- you'll just have to get another book if you want to hike them.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this book with my girlfriend about two years ago and we've done three hikes in the book... all of them of the 'strenuous' variety ranging from 7.5 to 10.0 mile hikes. This past weekend we did the Cedar Run/Whiteoak Canyon hike... nine waterfalls (it seemed like more) and what a wonderful hike it was.
The book is very well organized. It has all of the pertinent information about what to expect on the hike and gives highlights of things that you'll come across (and the approximate mile marker that you can expect to find them). The information includes, Skyline Dr mile marker to find the trail head, length of hike, difficulty of hike, vertical elevation, a map of the hike that includes some geographical information, a vertical elevation map that includes the mileage markers, a short mileage marker summary of the hike, and a descriptive page that takes you through every step of the hike.
Now, the only thing I've found wrong with this book is that some of the names of the trails aren't as advertised. For instance, this weekend on the Whiteoak Canyon Trail, at First Falls it told us to cross a foot bridge and continue on the Whiteoak Fire Rd, but the cement post did not advertise the Whiteoak Fire Rd. Using the trail map provided in the book and a sense of direction, we found the road, but still weren't sure if we were on the right trail, since we did find a marker for the road until we made the turn back to the trail head (about 1.7 miles of hiking).
We experienced similar problems on the other hikes we did, but that was the worst of it. With all of the information provided in the book, even if the written directions are a little fuzzy, the maps and additional information will keep you on the right track.
If you don't make this your main book for hiking SNP, I would definitely have it handy to plan trips and recommend it to anyone who likes to hike.
The book is very well organized. It has all of the pertinent information about what to expect on the hike and gives highlights of things that you'll come across (and the approximate mile marker that you can expect to find them). The information includes, Skyline Dr mile marker to find the trail head, length of hike, difficulty of hike, vertical elevation, a map of the hike that includes some geographical information, a vertical elevation map that includes the mileage markers, a short mileage marker summary of the hike, and a descriptive page that takes you through every step of the hike.
Now, the only thing I've found wrong with this book is that some of the names of the trails aren't as advertised. For instance, this weekend on the Whiteoak Canyon Trail, at First Falls it told us to cross a foot bridge and continue on the Whiteoak Fire Rd, but the cement post did not advertise the Whiteoak Fire Rd. Using the trail map provided in the book and a sense of direction, we found the road, but still weren't sure if we were on the right trail, since we did find a marker for the road until we made the turn back to the trail head (about 1.7 miles of hiking).
We experienced similar problems on the other hikes we did, but that was the worst of it. With all of the information provided in the book, even if the written directions are a little fuzzy, the maps and additional information will keep you on the right track.
If you don't make this your main book for hiking SNP, I would definitely have it handy to plan trips and recommend it to anyone who likes to hike.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not as good as others in the Falcon series
Normally I am a big fan of the Falcon guides, because of the elevation profiles and maps. While the maps and trail descriptions look fairly accurate in the 2nd edition of this... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Piedmont Hiker
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not a bad guide, but there is another option
I generally like the Falcon guides and this one, while not their strongest effort, is not bad. It covers the Park from top to bottom and offers the usual Falcon blend of easy to... Read more
Published on May 6, 2010 by Marcus Peacock
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great for day hikers.
I've had very good luck with the older edition of this book. In fact, I bought it a while ago. I've enjoyed it enough that I wanted to review it and Amazon. Read more
Published on August 7, 2007 by Virginia Day Hiker
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very informative and useful information
I bought this book on a spotaneous day trip to SNP. I had planned to hike one of the few trails I knew about in the area and stopped at a wayside to look throught the books to get... Read more
Published on August 26, 2006 by C. Walston
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent guide with useful maps and elevation profiles
I have been day-hiking in Shenandoah NP for 4 years now, and I find this guide indispensable.
I find one of previous reviewers' comments odd - this book provides very... Read more
I find one of previous reviewers' comments odd - this book provides very... Read more
Published on August 5, 2006 by Howard
2.0 out of 5 stars
Mediocre
I liked the organization of this book, and I really liked the way they organized the hikes in the appendix, listing them by difficulty, time to hike, with children etc. Read more
Published on January 5, 2006 by Hugh B. Long
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent and Informative
This book is a great companion for anyone hiking in Shenandoah. Each hike gives a very accurate description of the trail along with the degree of difficulty and elevation changes.
Published on May 31, 2000
