Gotta Hike B.C.: Premier Trails in southern British Columbia (Paperback)

by Skye (Author), Lake Nomad (Author), Skye Nomad (Author) "Upon entering the Canadian Rocky Mountain national parks, everyone must pay a User Fee..." (more)
Key Phrases: metal food cache, reset your trip odometer, subalpine ridge, Lake O'Hara, Alpine Circuit, Cobalt Lake (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The only book you need to enjoy the most spectacular, exhilarating hikes in southern British Columbia. Discerning trail reviews help you choose your trip. Detailed route descriptions keep you on the path. Includes dayhikes and backpack trips. Covers Vancouver Island, BC Coast Mountains, Purcells, Selkirks, and western Canadian Rockies.

About the Author
Skye and Lake are dedicated to each other, and to hiking, in that order. Their second date was a 32-km (20-mile) dayhike in Arizona. Since then they haven’t stopped for long. (In celebration of 20 years of adventurous travel together, they change their names from Kathy and Craig Copeland to Skye and Lake Nomad.)

They’ve trekked through much of the world’s vertical topography, including the Himalayas, Patagonian Andes, Pyrenees, Swiss Alps, Scottish Highlands, Dolomites, Sierra Nevada, North Cascades, Colorado Rockies, New Zealand Alps, and canyons of the American Southwest. In 1989, they moved from the U.S. to Canada, so they could live near the Canadian Rockies—the range that inspired the first of their refreshingly unconventional guidebooks.

While living in Vancouver, British Columbia, they explored the Coast Mountains and the North Cascades, then wrote hiking guidebooks on each of those ranges. Later, while living in a cabin on Kootenay Lake (between B.C.’s Purcell and Selkirk mountains), they researched and wrote two more hiking guidebooks: one on the Kootenays, the other on the premier trails of southern B.C.

Skye and Lake have since returned to the Canadian Rockies and now live in Canmore, Alberta. Their desire to hike, however, keeps them travelling constantly. For example, they migrate each spring and fall to the high-desert canyon country of southern Utah. Their guidebook on that sensual, other-worldly landscape promises to be especially stimulating.

But Skye and Lake agree: no matter how arduous the trail, or how severe the conditions, hiking is the easiest of the many tasks necessary to create a guidebook. What they find most challenging is having to sit. They spend twice as much time at their computers—writing, organizing, editing, checking facts, rewriting, re-organizing, re-editing, re-checking facts—as they do on the trail.

The result is worth it. Their colourful writing, opinionated commentary, and enthusiasm for the joys of hiking make their guidebooks uniquely helpful and compelling.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Voice in the Wilderness Press (June 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0969801688
• ISBN-13: 978-0969801689
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #983,618 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You gotta have Gotta Hike BC, May 8, 2003

By A Customer

My wife and I took a two-week vacation last September driving from the Rockies to Vancouver. It 's great this guidebook covers all the incredible mountain ranges in southern British Columbia, so we needed only one book. We've hiked often in the Rockies national parks of Alberta, but this book describes hikes in the Rockies that are just west of the parks. And we were usually alone on the trails. Then we hiked in the snowcapped Selkirks of Glacier NP (Canada's not the U.S.). We did a few dayhikes in the Kootenays around Nelson, BC. before heading to the Coast Mtns between Vancouver and Whistler. The hikes were all terrific. And the directions were easy to follow--to the trailheads and on the trail. Gotta Hike was fun to read in the car too. It's a hiking guide with personality. Don't miss getting this book or experiencing the best hikes in B.C.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great sampling of many of BC's premiere hikes, October 20, 2008

By	J. Nuttall - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book has an excellent smattering of day and extended hikes in a variety of locations in the southern half of British Columbia. BC is a hiker's dream - you could spend a lifetime exploring all the mountain ranges and watersheds in this province. The authors have done a good job of selecting enough of a dream list to get you started. It's totally subjective in that the authors have included only what they believe are the "must do" hikes. We've done several of them and so far I can confirm that their choices are excellent and the trip details are accurate and generally helpful without being too much information. There are a lot of opinions thrown in and I do think some of it doesn't serve much of a purpose except as a personal soapbox. I've logged a lot of miles in my hiking boots, but one day I could very well be too old to hike into some of these backcountry locations under my own steam. I'd like to know that when I'm 85 or 90 I might be able to helicopter in to visit Berg Lake, for instance. However, the authors would judge that to be cheating. But what the heck, it's their book and it's still a good one.