Customer Reviews

Trails of the Triangle: 200 Hikes in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill Area

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This book is very poorly organized. It is divided into public and private trails, instead of by region. The index only contains the names of trails, not the names of the parks or places the trails are located. Some things which were missing from the book include a large map of the region with numbers indicating where the major trails are located and a listing of the trails with length and difficulty. If you can find the trail-heads the maps are very good and there are nice descriptions of the trails. This is not a good book if you are not familar with the area.

My husband and I bought this book last year after we found ourselves looking for a new place to walk. We had been frequenting the Chapel Hill Greenway, and, well, it's just not very challenging. So, we picked up this book.

It's a very informative book. There are maps of most of the trails, which really helps you get a feel of the lay of the trail. Each trail has is accompanied by a lengthy description which include items such as:

*driving directions
*flora on the trail
*total distance of the trail
*distance of trail segements
*types of trails (dirt, gravel, footbridges)
*geography of trail (hills, streams, roads to cross)

The only issue we really had with the book were the driving directions. We were trying to get to a trail at Jordan Lake during the summer, and we weren't totally familiar with the area. We were following the directions in the book, but we really needed a few more geographical points to help us find the roads. Also, once we got to the trail area, we couldn't find the trailhead. The state did not do a good job marking the head, but it would have been nice to have known this in the trail description.

However, we did "discover" the Duke cross country trail from this book. We enjoy this trail- it is the perfect length for us and it's difficult enough to be a challenge. We also discovered that if you get caught in a rainstorm out there, there's absolutely nowhere to go!

If you like to walk in the Triangle, get this book!