4.0 out of 5 stars
An Essential Hiking and Planning Guide, June 14, 2009
This review is from: Moon Spotlight Sequoia and Kings Canyon Camping and Hiking (Paperback)
I spent my first two summers in California working in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. These parks are not as heavily visited as their better known northern neighbor Yosemite, but one can make a good case that the scenery is every bit as spectacular, while the hiking, camping, and fishing are significantly better. In an attempt to provide a detailed guide to outdoor recreational opportunities in these parks and surrounding areas, Moon Handbooks has excerpted chapters from their very popular guidebooks,
California Hiking and
California Camping to create this "Spotlight" guide to the Sequoia and Kings Canyon region. For the most part, the result is a very good book.
The book is divided into two parallel sections: a chapter on camping and a chapter on hiking. Both chapters start near Bass Lake in the north and continue south to about Kernville. In addition to the parks, the book highlights recreation in the Giant Sequoia National Monument, Golden Trout Wilderness, and Eastern Sierra. Steinstra's list of campgrounds is truly comprehensive. Not only are the popular, and exceedingly expensive, sites within the national parks and surrounding forest noted, but he also guides readers to the many free remote primitive campsites that are still available. (Be sure to pack out your own trash.) In an era when outdoor recreation is getting more and more expensive, its nice to note that Sequoia National Forest has more free campgrounds than just about anywhere. All campgrounds in Mountain Home State Demonstration Forest are also free.
In contrast to the comprehensive campground listings, the hiking chapter by Ms. Brown is far more selective, and rightly so, as a complete listing of trails in this region would be close to impossible within the confines of any book. The trails section is heavily weighted towards longer day hikes and overnights, but it also includes route descriptions for much of the John Muir trail. All the classic hikes you would expect are in this book: Roaring River Falls, the Congress Trail and Crescent Meadow, and of course Moro Rock. But readers will also be treated to hikes in the seldom explored Jennie Lakes Wilderness and the aformentioned Mountain Home State Demonstration Forest. I've hiked 70 of the 119 routes described here and all are winners. More importanly, all are accurate.
There is a lot to like about a book like this, but it is not perfect. As the title implies, it is a book on hiking and camping. Those seeking nice restaurants, lodging and other sorts of tourist attractions will have to look elsewhere. Aside from that, the only problem I noted with the book is that the editors did not always reconcile the entries from California Hiking with the new format. The section of Pacific Crest/John Muir Trail running from Lake Thomas Edison to Agnew Meadows includes the note that one should refer to the Yosemite chapter to continue hiking north on the trail. Of course, there is no Yosemite chapter in this book. And that brings up the broader question of whether you should buy this book at all or just buy the two comprehensive state guides listed above. The latter are fairly bulky, and if you just want to explore this region of the state, you can save money by purchasing this product instead. On the other hand, buying all the Spotlight Guides to the state is a far more expensive prospect than just purchasing California Hiking and California Camping. The choice is yours, but you will get the best of guidebooks either way.
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