This is a really interesting read and includes more than hikes - although that is it's focus. Overall, think this is a really useful book that provides good details of hikes throughout Death Valley. There were a number of hikes discussed that were not on the park service maps. I really liked this feature b/c we found ourselves in relative isolation and away from the crowds. Found the description of the hikes to be accurate and reliable to what you would see and the overall difficulty. We were there for the better part of a week and hiked at least one trail every day in a different areas. I suspect the author wanted to be equitable about the description of each hike, but I would have appreciated some indicator of particularly exciting/beautiful hikes. Still needed a lot more time to explore.
If you want to include more usual tourist activities - you'll need more than this book. You might be well served by using the NPS materials for that information. The book will include history, mining, etc, but it will not readily identify those "must do" or "must see" attractions.
Before purchasing, I read reviews stating that this had too much information. I can understand those complaints. I think in part it is because how the book is organized which is by mountain ranges. I found it helpful to have a map (National Geographic) to see a better map of the areas being described. It also helped plan for driving directions - which I thought was a particular weakness of the book. The descriptions make sense if you already have an idea of where you are going - but without that reference - I found the driving instructions to be a little non-specific (often without distances - descriptions could be 2 miles or 20 - sometimes hard to figure out). It would have been much more helpful to give routes with distances upfront.
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