Moon 101 Great Hikes of the San Francisco Bay Area (Moon Outdoors) [Paperback]

Ann Marie Brown (Author)

Book Description

Series: Moon Outdoors | Publication Date: September 28, 2007

Avid hiker and experienced travel writer Ann Marie Brown knows the best places to hike in the San Francisco Bay Area from ocean-front and mountain trails to scenic walks through Wine Country. This third edition of Moon 101 Great Hikes of the San Francisco Bay Area includes a new hiking tips section, updated trail maps for each hike, new chapter maps with sites plotted by region, and a new resources section. This guide also has helpful icons indicating access to historic sites, trails that are appropriate for children, wheelchair-accessible trails, and trailheads that can be accessed via public transportation.

Complete with difficulty levels from 1 to 5, Moon 101 Great Hikes of the San Francisco Bay Area provides hikers with first-rate expert advice and all the necessary tools to head outdoors.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The author of 12 outdoor guidebooks, Ann Marie Brown is a dedicated California outdoorswoman. She bikes, hikes, and camps more than 150 days each year to avoid routine, complacency, and getting a real job. Ann Marie's work has appeared in Sunset, VIA, Backpacker, and California magazines. As a way of giving back a bit of what she gets from her outdoor experiences, she writes and edits for several environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and National Resources Defense Council. When not riding or hiking along a California trail, Ann Marie can be found at her home just a few miles from Yosemite National Park.

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Avalon Travel Publishing; 3rd edition (September 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566919452
• ISBN-13: 978-1566919456
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #902,319 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars San Francisco: Outdoor Vacation Destination, October 11, 2007

By 

Fritz R. Ward "dayhiker" (Crestline, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Moon 101 Great Hikes of the San Francisco Bay Area (Moon Outdoors) (Paperback)

San Francisco is the only major urban area that I consider an outdoor (hiking/camping) vacation destination. Almost all cities have nice parks and short walks in areas where urban and wild (or at least undeveloped) landscapes interface. But the Bay Area has a lot of such lands and an abundance of trails on them. Even East Bay communities, with their thick urban development and nightly traffic snarls, have a parks and open space district that boasts nearly 100,000 square acres and contains over 1,100 miles of trail. The latter figure rivals what one can find in many national forests. But of course the Bay Area also includes towering redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains and the spectacular Point Reyes National Seashore.

So where should you turn to explore all this wild territory that surrounds one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world? There are many good guidebooks to the region, but this new edition of Ann Marie Brown's '101 Hikes' is an excellent starting point. The older edition was the first hiking guide I purchased to the Bay Area. It gave me many superb outings and the new edition is even better.

Like many other hiking guides from Moon Guidebooks, this one is long on route description, natural and local history, and includes numerous black and white photos from the author so readers can get a glimpse of the local scenery. Unlike other Moon Guides, this volume also has detailed sketch maps of the trails. The book covers wildlands from the Sonoma Coast to Santa Cruz and extends eastward as far as Napa Valley and Livermore. The four chapters cover each geographical region and the hikes are fairly evenly distributed. Most of the trips Brown offers in this book are half to full day excursions. Double digit mileage is common and hikes from five to ten miles are the norm. The author does, however, include a number of "options" for those who would like a shorter, or longer, hike.

On the whole, this is an excellent book. I can never decide if I like the Santa Cruz Mountains or Marin County more, but I have walked many of the selections Brown describes in these areas and think they are, without exception, the premier hikes in these parks. The waterfall loop in Big Basin Redwoods, the excursion through Henry Cowell, and the trip to Arch Rock at Point Reyes are all personal favorites that I have done many times. Buy this book and start building some memories of the (really) wild side within the greater Bay Area.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Bay Area Resource, December 3, 2007

By 

R.M. Fernandez - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moon 101 Great Hikes of the San Francisco Bay Area (Moon Outdoors) (Paperback)

Nature photography is a hobby of mine, so I bought this book as a guide to find local parks. So far, it's been a big help. This book is very well done and thoughtfully organized.

The book is divided into 4 regions of the bay area with maps at the beginning of each section, outlining the locations of each park. Each location has a basic trail map, a 1-2 page write-up, directions, and usually a tip to visit another nearby attraction.

A couple drawbacks: 1) The black and white photographs are poor newsprint quality. Color photographs (and more than one photo for each hike) would be a huge help. 2) Usually within the write-up for each hike, the author recommends the optimum time of the season to visit the park - it would be nice if that tip was included somewhere in the subheader (with the trail distance and difficulty level) so you could quickly scan through the hikes.

Overall, this is a great resource and highly recommended to anybody in the Bay Area looking to get outdoors.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Every Hiker's Essential Guide, July 7, 2008

By 

A. Sutono, a.k.a., The Observer - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Moon 101 Great Hikes of the San Francisco Bay Area (Moon Outdoors) (Paperback)

The San Francisco Bay Area has some of the most surreal landscapes in the world stretching across mountains, plains, lakes, waterfalls, redwood forests, and the Pacific Ocean all hikers; both apprentices and experts would enjoy. The list of hiking trails covers those in the Peninsula and Marin County by the Pacific Ocean and slightly inland, the Sonoma wine County, and the East Bay. These trails are rated in terms of their difficulty; easy and moderate; which usually mean flat trails with little elevation changes, as well as strenous and "butt-kicker" which mean they have significant elevation changes with steep slopes. The description of each trail includes the map; though not a detailed one, but still useful, what it is famous for; family-friendliness, waterfalls, spring flowers, bird-watching, wild life, and gorgeous vistas; some of which extend all the way to Sierra Nevada. It also includes a general direction to the trail from major highways., I would personally recommend Mission Peak Regional Preserve in Fremont, East Bay; Purisima Creek Redwood Open Space Reserve at the Peninsula, and Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin County. Wilder Ranch State Park, few miles north of Santa Cruz, is appropriate for families with little children considering its relatively short trail, about 2 miles, and quite a number of stunning views of the Pacific coast lines.

Get this book for your hiking guide and enjoy the glory of God through His creations.