Customer Reviews

Zion National Park , UT - Trails Illustrated Map # 214

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I like to hike in the national parks and use Trails Illustrated maps when they are available. Trail books often have small maps of the trails they describe, and those maps are fine for short hikes, but it's a good idea to have a larger topographic map for longer hikes. TI maps are durable and have a water resistant coating. (Good for when you get caught in the rain; probably less so if you fall in a creek.) TI maps mark the trails and their topographic features. The elevation markings give you a good idea of how steep a portion of a trail is. I've used TI's Glacier/Waterton map for several trails and always found them to be accurate and helpful.

I recently purchased this 2004 revision. Unfolded, the map paper is the same size as the 2000 revision, but feels substantially heavier. The park map, however, is now a bit bigger and is split with the north half of the park on one side and the south on the other (with a generous overlap between the two). The written information about the park that was previously on the back is still present, but is reduced in size and located in several smaller boxes spread around the map. An improved feature of this revision is the inclusion of more area beyond the park boundaries. A bit more area is covered on the west side of Waterton, but a lot more area is covered to the south and west of Glacier. This includes the area between Whitefish Lake, Columbia Falls, and Kalispell, as well as the Flathead National Forest and the Great Bear Wilderness. I don't use it, but this version indicates that it is GPS compatible with a full UTM grid.

TI's Glacier/Waterton map is worth having if you plan to do any hikes longer than a few miles. The 2004 revision is a good buy, particularly if you have an older version that is showing some wear. If your older revision is in good shape (they are durable after all!) you can probably get by with it.

I have the Trails Illustrated maps for many other National Parks and have used them all to plan extensive backpacking trips. Unlike every other TI map I've purchased, this one doesn't list campsite names/designations or trail mileage. It's fine for other purposes such as navigation, landmark spotting, and getting an overall lay of the land. But, it's VERY disappointing for planning purposes and creates the extra hassle of figuring out the mileage between points when using it in the backcountry. TI does offer three other, more detailed, Glacier maps that cover specific sections of the park. But I checked them out online and, while they do list campsite names, they don't list trail mileages either. Not sure why they decided to leave that detail off of these maps when they include it on almost every other map they offer. The Glacier NP website has a printable (one page) backcountry map that lists each campsite's designation and the mileage of every section of trail. It's MUCH more useful for trip planning and checking mileage in the backcountry...though it obviously doesn't have any of the topographic detail that the TI map offers. In short, this is an okay map...but it lacks enough detail to stand on its own.

I got this map for my parents before their trip to Glacier and my dad couldn't put it down. they haven't left yet but he already knows where and how to get to everything he wants to see. he has trails picked out and anything else you can pick out on a piece of paper. this map got him very excited for his trip and he said that it looks like a good map.

I originally did not purchase this map for my Grand Canyons hikes due to the reasons sited in the poor reviews, as their points are all valid.

However, I was at the USGS store picking up topos for another summer's canyon back country adventures and happen to look at this map and validated the observations of the previous reviewers.

The only plus to this map is that it is the one map that covers the area of the park containing the inner canyon back country trails south of the river, from the Little Colorado on the east over to Royal Arch on the west; though, as noted in other reviews, not all of those trails are shown on this map.

It is however a nice eye-candy map to hang on the wall to plot & visualize daily segments of longer hikes through the the length of canyon, and show accomplished inner canyon adventures.

So I recently picked it for that purpose, and it is an attractive low scale reference wall map nicely depicting the eastern half of the inner canyon. On the back side is coverage of the upper canyon north to Navajo Bridge & the Vermillion Cliffs area.

You will not be using this map to scout camp sites or water sources on the escalade, or looking for sections of higher exposure along the non-maintained back-country trails. It's low scale lacks any practical in-the-field function, particularly in the canyon back country.

As previously noted the SKY TERRAIN canyon map is clearly far superior, though it does not have any map coverage west of Boucher Rapids- no West Tonto, South Bass, or Royal Arch trails coverage.

Though, in all fairness, the Sky Terrain map, though a better scale and much more trail info than the NG map, is not a map of which I would depend on for land navigation in the area of the canyon where the non-maintained trails turn to rather indistinguishable routes though backcountry terrain

Somewhat puzzling, the single mileage map scale is only printed on the upper canyon/Vermillion Cliffs side of the map & no scale reference on the main canyon flip-side of the map. If you are not familiar with eyeballing distance using metric map grids, which cover the map, you'll need to unfold & flip the map to get the miles distance.

Even if you are only doing the day hike to Phantom Ranch, or a rim-to-rim on the well-maintained main corridor trails, based on my inner canyon experiences, I think you would find this map lacking and not worth the pack space/weight.

But it does look darn good hanging on the wall highlighting the growing number of inner canyon adventures.

There are some pretty major errors on this map.
1. The Clear Creek Trail is missing from this map.
2. The use area boundaries are in the wrong place (at least different than every other map of the Grand Canyon)
3. It advertises an abandoned trail as a major trail.

Instead of this map, buy the Sky Terrain map, much more accurate.

Hiking? Use this map at Zion National Park. This map is one of many in a series with trails marked on a topographic map that is an excellent resource for backpacking or even day-hiking.

I originally bought Trails Illustrated Yosemite National Park Map, which was great. My favorite part of it was that it showed you exactly how long part of a trail was, so you could plan far ahead how far you were willing to go and when to turn back. I was very disappointed when I discovered that this map did not have these on there. It's very difficult to determine how long parts of a trail are, especially in regions of dense switchbacks. I can't compare to other companies' maps, but this is nothing like the Yosemite Park map.

I ordered this map because I need a Topo of Capitol Reef National Park. Despite the description and title reflecting that Capitol Reef is included, no part of the park is on this map. Had to return.

Please note that Amazon is showing on the page for the "San Rafael Swell, Utah" many reviews for other maps from the same publisher, that are for other parts of North America.

Great map for overall information of roads, trail locations as well as some sites, lodges and some topography detail of the Teton NP area. I have used the National Geographic maps before for other National Parks and have found that each one is a bit different in the detail provided. The plastic coating on the paper helps the longevity of the map especially for caring it while hiking trails. This map I will only be using for vehicle travel while vacationing in the Teton NP in 2011. $11 to $12 is pricey for a map but if you want a National Geographic map for one of our US National Parks that is the price we have to pay. I do highly recommend this map for the information it has. If you want more topography information and trail distances them you might want to consider other maps in addition to this one.