Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Guidebook needs maps, November 24, 1999
By A Customer
This book has has three distinct shortcomings. The most significant is the paucity of maps. I do not understand having a guidebook without adequate maps for guidance. The second is that although this book is written in the first person in a journal-style manner, no dates are given for the hikes. It is difficult to ascertain the freshness of the material, some of which has been in print in earlier editions for over 15 years. Third, the book is not organized by geographic location, but by ownership of the property, which is not exactly user-friendly. On the other hand, DeHart covers a heck of a lot of trails, from very short to very long. And the author's description of vegetation is impressive.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Narratives of over 200 walks and trails is impressive., November 30, 1998
By A Customer
Allen de Hart has been describing trails in the southeast for many years, and his writing style and expertise are well respected. He is not, however, always timely, and the book's continued lack of maps for most trails is disappointing. The book's biggest shortcoming is the lack of maps. De Hart provides maps of the Foothills Trail, Kings Mountain Trail, and four national forest trails. But maps are absent for the remainder of the hikes, leaving guide users fully dependent on narrative descriptions of routes. It is unfortunate that the fourth edition of "Hiking South Carolina Trails" still contains some information that was accurate when the author began his South Carolina series 14 years ago, but which has since changed. Examples include directions to fire towers torn down years ago and alterations in trail routes. On the other hand, Swamp Fox Trail errors contained in the 1994 edition have been corrected. The problem of outdated material could be partially alleviated if the author would at least note the dates upon which each of his first person narratives are based. Despite an impressive 200 trails described, de Hart's books omits some of South Carolina's best, including the Lake Moultrie Passage of the Palmetto Trail, Bear Island, Donnelly Wildlife Management Area, ACE Basin National Wildlife Refuge, Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge, and the Anne Springs Close Greenway. Conversely, a large number of the 200 trails which are described are really pathways of very short distances, often less than a mile. The strengths of "Hiking South Carolina Trails" are de Hart's first person, journal-style of writing, in which the author's warm, folksy personality shines through, and his knowledge of the plant life he encounters. And even though many of the trails described in the books are of questionable interest for serious hikers, a collection of narratives of over 200 trails of any type is impressive.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A Competant, Comprehensive Guide to South Carolina Hiking, January 5, 2009
This review is from: Hiking South Carolina Trails, 5th (Regional Hiking Series) (Paperback)
I've had some bad experiences with other books in this series, so I opened this book somewhat afraid of what I might find. Fortunately, this guide was not the disaster I had feared.
This guide describes a large number of trails (too many to count; I would guess 300-400) all over South Carolina. Distance and difficulty range from flat, paved 0.3 mile trails in small city parks to difficult 10+ mile hikes in the Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area. De Hart deserves credit for devoting many pages to trails in lesser-known destinations such as county parks, university-run preserves, and private-run preserves. While information about national forest and state park trails is readily available online, trail guides such as this one are needed to help hikers find the lesser-known, but no less rewarding, trails.
Since De Hart is one of the best trail authors available, it comes as no surprise that most of the trail descriptions are excellent. Unfortunately, as a previous reviewer has noted, the same cannot be said for the maps. A few of the major trails (Foothills Trail, Swamp Fox Trail, etc.) have nice maps including contours, but most of the trails have no maps at all. Indeed, it is hard to follow even the best written trail description without some sort of map. This is the main weakness of this guide and the main reason I have docked it one star.
In summary, if you plan to buy only one guide to South Carolina hiking, this would NOT be the one; for that, I would recommend either "Hiking South Carolina" by Clark and Dantzler or the new "50 Hikes in South Carolina" by Johnny Molloy. However, those two guides focus mainly on state park and national forest trails. Thus, if you want a more comprehensive guide that includes many lesser-known destinations, then this guide deserves your consideration.
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