Customer Reviews

Moon Spotlight Tahoe Camping and Hiking

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Tahoe is one of the top outdoor vacation destinations in the western United States. The third deepest lake in the US, and tenth in the world, it is among the most scenic places you can visit. Camping by the lake is great, and hiking in the nearby state parks, or better yet, the Desolation Wilderness, is fabulous. Tahoe rightly demands a good recreation guide, but unfortunately, this little book is not it. The main reason is that Moon's 'Spotlight' Tahoe only covers the California portion of the lake and surrounding areas. In one sense, this is understandable. Like other books in the Moon Spotlight series, this one is excerpted from two larger books, California Camping and California Hiking and that series does not cover camping or hiking outside the Golden State.

But what is included is excellent. Claims to the contrary, the maps do accurately show the location of the campgrounds and driving directions are accurate. The hikes include a wide range of trails, from short day hikes among the northernmost grove of Sequoia trees to several multi-day treks along the Pacific Crest Trail. I have personally completed over 1/3 of the 111 hikes listed in this book and have never been disappointed by the scenery along the trail. My only concern is that on some national forest hikes, what Stienstra, an accomplished outdoorsman, considers to be a mile is significantly longer than what some of us in lesser condition think is a mile. Substantial elevation gain may play a role in this interpretive discrepancy, but all levels of hikes are included in this book. So if some seem too strenuous, try others.

On the downside, the California focus of the book means you miss quite a bit. The Carson range, a spur of the Sierra Nevada mountains, is entirely neglected in a book like this. Over 60 miles of the 165 mile Tahoe Rim Trail is not covered, and routes up Freel Peak and Mt. Rose are simply not included. Nor, for that matter, are popular nature walks like the Tahoe All Access Trail in the meadows below Relay Peak. Good camping, beautiful lakes, and long ranging views are all missing from this guide. Worse yet, these are precisely the trails and campgrounds that open earliest in the season. And the sad thing is, no other single guidebook covers both the hiking and camping opportunities in this area. So until Tom Stienstra (who has a lot on his plate) can come to the Tahoe region and significantly expand this guidebook (or get his sometimes co-author, who lives in Tahoe region, to do it) Moon's Spotlight Tahoe will remain an incomplete glimpse at what a good full fledged recreational guide to Tahoe should look like.

Grossly misleading! This book covers only California side, which is only slightly more than half of Tahoe area.

The book has good descriptions of the various campgrounds and hikes in the Tahoe area. Unfortunately, there are numerous errors in the maps (map 1 in particular) where the numeric code shown on the map doesn't correspond to the campsite that is being referenced - specifically sites 89 through 112 on map 1 are all incorrect. Some of the directions also appear suspect so I'm validating all the information before actually using the write ups. If the descriptions do prove accurate, it will still be helpful but much harder to use than it should be. Someone has to do some better editing of this book!