Customer Reviews

Sierra South: 100 Backcountry Trips in California's Sierra Nevada

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4 star:		(2)
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I enjoy all of the Winnett books because they are accurate, fun to read and reliable. This book has little chapters on over 100 trips in the Sierra range, and the descriptions of each trek are a total delight. So often these hiking books neglect to tell you how to reach the trailhead and oftentimes they don't provide detailed instructions. Winnett never makes this mistake. You will not need a separate map to locate any of the trailheads, his maps and written instructions are first-rate. Equally interesting is that this book doesn't merely give elevation gains, difficulty ratings and desriptions of the trail conditions. These are vital to know, but Winnett also includes little bits of information of what kinds of wild flowers you will encounter, birds, wildlife and other little nuggets neglected in other guides.

The book is supposed to be only for overnight backpacking trips, but there are many trails here that can be used for day hikes. These trips will be in the 10-16 mile range and any strong hiker can easily do these hikes in one day. If you do choose to go the multi-day backpacking route, Winnett describes water sources, camping sites and addresses whether bears or marmots might be a problem for you. Most importantly, he tells you where to find water and whether the water source is reliable throughout the whole year.

I can't recommend this guide highly enough. Even if you're an armchair hiker, you'll derive many hours of vicarious joy from this guide.

The only thing I would add to the previous review is that Sierra South does not have that big a selection of overnighters. Of the ones they do have, many are 9-ish miles in length (round trip) and I don't like to drive that far to do a couple hours of hiking. It is still a great book, though. Sierra North has more in the way of overnighters.

Well researched and extremely well written, it is a wealth of accurate information for planning either partial day hikes or multiday backpacks. The single most reached for resource I use for the lower Sierra's trails. The description of the trail, fauna and flora to be expected enroute and access to trailheads are valuable and allows even the armchair hiker a good virtual experience. A companion guide to be used with this book would be a good topo map similar to perhaps those produced by Tom Harrison Maps.