Customer Reviews

Hot Springs and Hot Pools of the Southwest: Jayson Loam's Original Guide (Hot Springs & Hot Pools of the Southwest: Jayson Loam's)

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

 

 

This is probably the best hot spring book in existence for the southwestern U.S.. It is great, it has everything you need. Beyond the locations themselves, the book lists temperature of the pools, driving direcetions, driving conditions, exact GPS coordinates, accessability and a great description of the springs along with some black and white pictures. It has all of the major hot springs in it (I am sure there are still some minor ones on private property). I have been to a couple of the sites in the book and it was easy to find them. I would highly recommend this book.

My wife and I bought this book in Salida, Colorado after aborting a week-long backpacking trip due to weather. Instead, we used the book as a guide taking us to a couple wonderful hot springs. Our first experience was the Rainbow Springs hot spring near Wolf Creek Pass in Colorado. It involved a pretty good hike and we camped out. The guide wasn't entirely up to date. Some of the directions were no longer valid (happens with remote sites). But we managed.

The book really came in handy as we were heading home and needed a place to rest for the night. It had the phone number for Joyful Journeys with information about their lodging. We ended up camping there and discovering our favorite hot springs.

Since then we've used the book to plan vacations in New Mexico and Southern California. We like to add a hot springs or two to our journeys and this book is the right guide for it!

The photos are a little grainy and all black and white. Generally the springs look nicer than they do in the photos. Some of the directions are a bit dated but you can usually find better directions on the[...] first!

If you like hot springs, this is the book for you! The most information in the easiest format to follow. The directions are better than most other books like it, Really I haven't found a hot spring book that compares, this one has been around a long time and it's still the best. Also has been revised so its up to date.

By using the GPS coordinate, we had a lot of fun searching the hot springs in the Mammoth Lakes area. The only reason I give it 4 stars is there is a wrong GPS coordinate (reading the direction eventually got me there). Great book.

I bought this book based on reviews and recommendations and have used it to find a handful of hot springs in CA and NV, but have also been able to compare it to "Touring California and Nevada Hot Springs" book. I haven't used that book as much as this one tough.

Summary:
I think pretty much everything is better with the other book, except for the fact that this one has GPS coordinates and that the other book has worse high level overview maps. My recommendation is to buy the other book, and perhaps look up GPS coordinates to pools before you head out.

Driving Directions:
Both books have relatively poor driving directions. Perhaps they are a little bit better in this book but hard to tell. This book does have GPS coordinates though, and that REALLY helps and probably is the biggest advantage of this book. If you don't have a GPS, then it might be a good idea to also print driving directions from Google maps before you head out.

Maps:
This book has mid size maps the size of a state, and three maps of CA. The maps are pretty crappy and sketchy but does give you a decent overview of where the springs are. I think the other book was lacking these higher level overview maps, which was very frustrating! This book does have close ups on regions with many hot springs, or maps of driving directions to particularly tricky places, which is very helpful. Can't remember to what degree the other book also did.

Pictures:
This book has a black/white picture of every spring which is nice, but the quality of the pictures are often pretty poor and it's hard to judge much from them. I don't think the other book had pictures of all springs.

Spring info:
Comparable info between the books. I think this book contained some springs in CA/NV that weren't mentioned in the other book, but not sure about that.

Region info:
This book has none. The other book introduces the history of a region or nearby town. I personally really liked that part.

Design/Layout:
This book is ugly and kind of hard to navigate. Feels like it was designed by an 80 year old guy who never wrote a book before, and only had a typewriter as help. The other book has all info clearly separated into info on driving directions, pool temperatures, region info, etc. Very nice design.

I got into hiking and discovered hotsprings a few years ago. This book is a great guide and map to many great springs all over the South west and more.
Def. reccomend it for the adventurer

Awesome book. Very good shape, good price And I didn't have to leave home! Quick shipping too.
Thanx, Gene