Customer Reviews

Hiking Yosemite National Park

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great book for both hikers wanting the more popular, "touristy" hikes and those wanting a physical challenge. There are detailed descriptions for all the hikes, and she even breaks down the hikes by her favorite hikes for "high altitude", "photo opps", "waterfalls", "solitude", etc. I found the descriptions pretty accurate. A good book for someone who's not so familiar with all the different types of hikes in Yosemite.

I spend all winter planning my hikes for the summer. I own and have used most of the titles for Yosemite. Hiking Yosemite National Park has most of the most popular trails but two other books do a better job: 100 Hikes in Yosemite National Park and Lonely Planet Hiking in the Sierra Nevada.

My main complaint is the incomplete descriptions, too short and too vague. If you get off the trail you'll run the risk of getting lost because there are no "big picture" maps. A topo is absolutely essential if you want to understand your location.

This is an indispensible guidebook for any hiker who loves Yosemite. I use it almost daily during hiking season and it helps in selecting hikes, planning them, reaching the trailhead and gauging whether a hike will be worthwhile. Each hike contains an accurate, though brief, description of the rigors of each trek. Occasionally I quibble with the authors ranking of a given hike, but usually they are on the mark.

A few cautionary notes: there are no detailed maps in the book, except general maps which introduce the hiker to each specific place. Te map for the John Muir trail, for example, is very basic. Don't expect detailed maps for each hike because there are none. The descriptions of how to reach each trailhead are excellent, unless you have little experience with Yosemite.

My favorite part of the book is that the Touloume Meadows High Country area is not neglected. Swedo has various categories and list the hikes they think are best suited to be placed in every league and the valley floor is not the only area of the park that is stressed .If you spend any time hiking in Yosemite, this book is essential!

This is a straightforward guide to the trails in Yosemite that does the job clearly and informatively, and at a good price. The guide is well laid out, organized by trailhead area. Each hike has all the necessary information (length, altitude gain, best time of year etc) and an elevation profile, followed by a brief description that gives a feel for the area and a list of way-points. Each trail gets about two pages of information, and the book is small enough to carry along without minding the weight. Overall this is a very good guide - nothing flashy but its very well put together, well thought out and a good price.

I purchased this book for a trip to Yosemite that I took earlier this year. The descriptions of the hikes were wonderful and included such key details as where to park and what the water & facility opportunities are on the trails. Another key detail in the book was a breakdown of elevation gain per foot. I used it to help plan my Half Dome hike and it was essential. Unfortunately there was an incident in my pack with the bug spray so I'm online today to purchase this book again to help plan my new conquest - El Capitan.

Like most Falcon hiking guides, this one provides useful and reliable information. The only shortcoming is it doesn't provide comprehensive information on all the trails and destinations. It wouldn't take much to add this info so that a reader who wanted to cobble together a different hike from the ones described in detail could figure out distances and altitudes gained (similar, for example, to AMC guides for hiking in various locales out East).

Great book. Has maps and descriptions for a ton of hikes in Yosemite. Contains a chart of hikes by difficulty, scenery, etc. I'll definitely go with FalconGuide for future hiking books.

I have many books about hikes and trails in Yosemite but this is my favorite one. I have planned several backpacking trips that were comfortably at my ability level based on this book. The trail descriptions are accurate with brief descriptions of the offtrail wildlife (If you are looking for a book that primarily gives excessive detail of the offtrail flora and fauna, you might find this book lacking). In my opinion, the best feature of this book is the graph at the beginning of each hike that displays the elevation change (y-axis) throughout the hike, by mile (x-axis). This is an ideal way to see how strenuous the hike will actually be.

I bought several yosemite books before my visit, but this is by far the best book I found for the many hikes now that I am here. Perhaps there are better ones, but this one is quite good. One great feature is that for most hikes it gives a 2D elevation change cutaway map for the entire route so that you can judge for youself the level of difficulty of the hike. Many books seem to disagree on this point. (You can see the big spike at half dome for instance as a comparison.) The maps even have GPS coordinates. The maps do have rough topographical shading as well (though color would be better for this).

This book is very easy to navigate through & the author gives great topgraphical maps for each hike section. I've been using this book to plan my trip this year & it will let you know what to expect on the terrain mile by mile. Each trail has a difficulty rating, appx. travel time, seasons best to hike, GPS compatible, and some VERY basic info on contacting the park.

I would recommend buying a complete map to Yosemite which will help to plan your entire trip. I've recently purchased National Geographic Destination Map & it will give you all the additional info you need. It gives much more info on campgrounds, how/where to purchase permits for the backcountry, driving distances within the park & other accomodations.