Five-Star Trails: Tucson: Your Guide To The Area's Most Beautiful Hikes Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
Tucson lies in a saguaro-studded desert basin surrounded by four mountain ranges and book-ended by two national parks. In an hour you can drive from an arid canyon in the Arizona-Sonora desert to a pine-forested mountain at 9000 feet. Hiking trails are plentiful and as varied as the terrain. Five-Star Trails: Tucson by Rob Rachowiecki guides hikers to diverse trails suitable for anyone from wheelchair-using nature lovers to those looking for an all-day workout.Sized to fit in a pocket, this guide is convenient to keep in the car or toss into a backpack. Driving directions steer hikers to the nearest trailhead parking areas, including GPS trailhead coordinates to get them to the start of the trail.Each trail has been thoroughly researched, recently hiked and includes detailed descriptions, trail profiles and maps. At a glance categorical ratings, such as scenery, trail condition, difficulty, solitude and kid-friendliness, let you quickly select a trail that fits your tastes and ability. Other key information such as fees, restrictions for dogs as well as advice on when to visit offers you the best information so you can plan your trip with ease.
Series: Five-Star Trails
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Menasha Ridge Press; First Edition, 1st Printing edition (February 18, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0897324420
ISBN-13: 978-0897324427
Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.6 x 7.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #218,204 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #2 in Books > Travel > United States > Arizona > Tucson #9 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Nature Travel > Adventure > Kayaking #10 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Nature Travel > Adventure > Canoeing
See my review for the Levengood book - this is the one we actually used the most out of the hiking guides we bought for our Tucson vacation. It had a good mix of short and long trails, and decently-useable information on difficulty and reason thereof, which was pretty important for us as a family with a young kid and elderly folks. The book had a few flaws and minor inaccuracies (what hiking guide doesn't?), and I would definitely recommend supplementing with maps and information from the specific locations you plan to hike (Saguaro NP, for instance), but if you can only afford one hiking guide this would be a good one.
I travel throughout the U.S., and globally. I mountain bike, hike, back pack and kayak in addition to prowling through urban areas. I have a lot of guide books. This is the best overall guide I have purchased. The maps and descriptions are consistently accurate. I hiked about ten of the hikes in different areas. I loved the organization by geographical areas in Tucson, and the awesome overall map in the cover that had a numbered key to all of the trails which made it simple to narrow down choices according to your upcoming location. Maps and elevation graphs were very accurate. The descriptions really come through when you come to a spot in the trail and your not certain of the right path; as there was almost always commentary on the quandary. Directions to the trail heads were also accurate the majority of the time. I really appreciated the solitude ratings; as that is really important to me. I think if he does a revision, he should add an extra rating in the difficulty span. I prefer trails on the more strenuous side of things. Sometimes, there didn't seem to be much of a correlation between grueling and moderate rating across trails, but I guess we all have different perspectives on what makes moderate, etc.
These trail descriptions show elevation,have gps coordinates, and best of all, are rated on a number of criteria including the extent to which the trail is workable for children. As a family traveling with a 7 year old, it's an excellent resource.
Very good book. Would be better if there were pictures of the trails and a better explanation of the distance (whether or not the distance is round trip). I would recommend this book for someone who is looking for a good starter book on hiking. The maps could also be a little more detailed.
As a visitor during the Gem and Mineral show, I spent a week's worth of my mornings treking around Tucson. The guide was a good read, however I am of the belief that the geology is the primary reason for being there. As such, only two trails were listed as best for geology (really? All the trails have spectacular geologic features), and those two were absent of any geologic discriptions. So, not discussing even the big picture geology of an area was sad and it detracted from my overall enjoyment of the guide. I did like the subject headings for the recomended hikes section and focused much of my time on the ridge trails and mountain sumits. BTW - the books binding separated and pages started falling out after the first half hour of use on the trail.
Good Info, I wish it was in color!
This was a gift for someone who lives in the area.
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