Customer Reviews

Hooked on Hiking: Southern California: 50 Hiking Adventures

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

 

 

Combine California's best outdoor author with an innovative publisher, solid cartography, and a spare carabiner and you get one of the best new hiking guides to hit the market in years. What makes this guide different is that it is not a book at all. Rather, each of the 50 hikes detailed in this guide is printed on water resistant card stock. On the front of each route description is a detailed color topographical map showing the described hike in bold red dashed lines, often with additional side trails in black. On the reverse is a concise route description, written in the inimitable style of Ann Marie Brown as well as accurate driving directions to the trail head. In all, this is an exciting new product.

What makes this guide so great is that without tearing or damaging the book, it is fairly easy to take a single page hiking with you and reattach it later. Other nice features include a color coding of route descriptions: white means easy, tan implies moderate, and pink indicates strenuous. But none of the hikes are truly strenuous. The longest is 7 miles and most of the hikes can be accomplished by any reasonably fit person.

The other strong feature of the book is the hike selection itself. Few people have explored the state to the extent that the author has and if you are looking for 50 exceptional dayhikes in southern California, it would be hard to argue with this selection. National Parks Sequoia and Kings Canyon, Death Valley, and Joshua Tree are well represented. But you will also find many great walks in California State Parks, National Forests, and other public lands. In all, this is an excellent selection in a useful format. I hope other publishers will follow suit, but in the meantime, be sure to get this beautiful set of hiking cards. It is an excellent investment in outdoor recreation.

I love the packaging for this hiking book however I was disappointed to find only 2 hikes in the Greater Los Angeles area. The Santa Monica Mountains have so many hiking trails that I had hoped to find in this book. It's a suggestion for another edition.

It was exactly what I was looking for! I love how quickly I get what I buy! I found this product in a magazine article and didn't know where to buy it. So I tried Amazon and found it there!