Customer Reviews

Longstreet Highroad Guide to the New York Adirondacks (Longstreet Highlands Innactive Series)

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It is obvious that Phil Brown, despite his workmanlike description of nearly every square inch of New York's Adirondack Park, has a passion for the region unmatched by any other expert. His descriptions of trails, waterways and other attractions of the Adirondacks expose his intimate relationship with America's most beautiful environment. This book is all you need to guide your exploration. It is an instant classic.

Thankfully my husband and I live in the Adirondacks and have been somewhat familiar with the areas we have hiked. Out of 5 of the places we have hiked from the book, 3 have had wrong directions. The directions for Lyon Mountain say to go 9.3 miles Northwest when it is actually Northeast which brought us in a totally different direction. The campsite to go through at Lake Meachem to get to DeBar Mountain is wrong. The list goes on. It is a confusing book since many maps show mountains to hike, but don't tell how to get to them and some tell how to get to them but don't show them on a map. I will agree that it has given us a lot of ideas on where to hike around us that we didn't know existed. But, I wonder if the author actually hiked to these places.

Even though I spent my summers as a kid in the Adirondacks this book was a tremendous help in planning a trip back to there after being gone for 20 years. I couldn't believe the things we did that I had never seen within 20 miles over our old summer home! In addition to the help in planning a trip we brought it with us everwhere we went and it helped us get some great ideas on things to do once we got to our initial destinations. Wish they had one for the mountains in VA.

We make frequent trips to the Adirondacks for family vacations; on the last three, we've had this book in hand and have had a variety of disappointing experiences. Here are some of our complaints:

1) the organization of this book is really confusing. Although the book includes lots of maps, there isn't a great overview of the entire Adirondack region. For example, information on attractions, trails, etc in the Lake Placid area is scattered over several discrete sections. This makes it difficult to plan a day out if you know where you're going to be basing yourself. This book also does a poor job of cross-referencing between the maps and the text.

2) Trail information is to be taken with a grain of salt. One set of directions was so confusing that we ended up giving up, and once we were unable to locate a trailhead at all. The directions given in the guide tend to look very precise (indicating, for example, tenths of a mile), but in the field are not very useful. The descriptions of trails are also not especially useful. The Heart Lake loop at Adirondack Loj, for example, is described as "easy", implying a walk that is friendly for kids, etc. In terms of length (1 mile) this is accurate, but in terms of terrain (lots of root knots in the trail, low lying areas that stay muddy for many days after the rail, some steep inclines/declines) it's not "easy". Although we haven't tried any of the longer trails listed in this book, based on our experience I would be very very wary of using this guide alone to plan an all-day hike anywhere in the Adirondacks.

3) Fees. Although the guide indicates where fees are collected, it does not indicate what specific prices are. The Adirondacks are expensive -- the parking fee at Adirondack Loj (advertised as a good starting point for several walks) is $8 or $9, High Falls Gorge costs almost $10 per adult and $7 per child, etc. -- and the book doesn't do a good job of indicating this to people unfamiliar with the area.

I guess this book is useful as an overview or for someone trying to identify what they might like to see in the Adirondacks. As far as a practical field guide to the area, however, this is only marginally useful. Interested travelers would be advised to do some homework -- especially on trails, even the so-called easy family hikes -- outside of this guide.