Hiking Idaho: A Guide To The State's Greatest Hiking Adventures (State Hiking Guides Series) Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
Lace up your boots and sample more than 100 trails in Idaho's vast undeveloped backcountry and wilderness areas. Discover pink granite peaks of the Sawtooth Range, "big tree" country in the Selkirk Mountain rain forest, and Hells Canyon - the deepest gorge in North America. Idaho offers hikers some of the most magnificent and rugged mountain scenery in the Lower 48 as well as peaceful alpine meadows, sparkling lakes, excellent fishing, and the chance to see high-country wildlife. Use this guide for: up-to-date trail information; accurate directions to popular as well as less-traveled trails; difficulty ratings for each hike; detailed trail maps; zero-impact camping trips. Whether you are a day-tripper or long-distance hiker, old hand or novice, you'll find trails suited to every ability and interest throughout Idaho.
Series: State Hiking Guides Series
Paperback: 488 pages
Publisher: Falcon Guides; Third Edition edition (June 17, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0762770872
ISBN-13: 978-0762770878
Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.9 x 8.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #271,063 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #23 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Mountaineering > Excursion Guides #336 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Mountaineering > Mountain Climbing #384 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Hunting & Fishing > Fishing
This book is a model of what a hiking book should be. The authors cover a wide range of hikes representative of various terrains and geographical locations in the state. Furthermore, these guys are intelligent and actually know how to write.Unlike many hiking guides, they nail the essentials of a hike: detailed driving and hiking directions, scenic qualities, seasonality, elevation and distance maps, stream crossings, presence of wildlife, and potential hazards (e.g. avalanches, orienteering challenges, scree). They also list other practicalities such as water availability, presence of co-existent equestrians, cattle, and motorized trail vehicles on trails, fishing opportunities, road conditions, parking, nearby camping, photography opportunities etc. etc. that are important to the hiker on the ground. There are photos of most of the hikes. As a bonus, they also delve into the legal and political status of the land on which the hikes exist. Finally, unlike many hiking books, this one actually has a detailed index which obviously greatly enhances the usefulness of a hiking book.
By many measures, this is an excellent hiking guide: detailed trip descriptions (including trailhead-finding instructions), maps, and other pertinent information are included for all the hikes. The hikes themselves are high-quality. Many trips include a color photo or two as well. If youâre looking for a good introduction to hiking opportunities in southern and central Idaho, this is a great place to start. As others have noted, if youâre looking for many hikes in the Panhandle, this is not your book.There are some issues however, most notably accuracy. I have found several inaccuracies in the trail descriptions. For example, consider the photo Iâve uploaded showing an excerpt from Hike #40, the Toxaway-Pettit Loop. It is a loop, i.e. it starts and ends at the same place. However, the elevation profile map for the hike on pg 215 shows the trip starting at 7,000â elevation and ending at 6,500â. Additionally, the same elevation profile shows Farley Lake at 4.0 miles from the trailhead, whereas the text in the hike description would lead you to believe it is about 5.65 miles (2.7 miles from the trailhead to Yellow Belly Junction + 1.0 mile to Yellow Belly Creek + 0.2 miles to the start of the climb + 1.75 miles to Farley Lake from the start of the climb). From other topo maps, the reality appears to be somewhere between those two numbers.For another example of accuracy issues, consider hike #37, Bench Lakes. The trip description says, âAt 0.6 mile there is a junction with the Bench Lakes Trail. Turn left hereâ¦â . However in the âMiles and Directionsâ trip summary on the next page, at 0.6 miles it says to turn right at the Bench Lakes trail junction, not left.Granted you should never be relying on just a book description instead of a good map. That said, things like elevations, distances, and which direction to turn are absolute fundamentals to hiking guidebooks that authors need to make every effort to get correct. So by all means, buy this book and use it as the great resource it is for finding inspiration for your next Idaho hike. But be aware that the accuracy of some trip descriptions leaves something to be desired.
Outstanding in many aspects. Just understand this is a list of 100 hikes in Idaho, not necessarily the 100 best hikes in Idaho. If it would have been the latter, you would have to add many others from the Sawtooths and central Idaho and strip off some of the ones in other parts of the state. Still, a great resource along with the Fuller books.
Format and info seems well presented but there is NO advice on hiking near Sandpoint, such a beautiful area. The panhandle is not well represented. Wish it was, because this is a good layout.
The layout here is excellent, with information presented in a consistent and easy-to-read format. The few hikes from the book I've been on have been consistent with the guide's descriptions. This is always welcome as there are too many of them that leave you wondering whether its author was high on peyote. I appreciated the various flowery hike descriptions themselves and I can only imagine what it would be like to describe these hikes without slipping into bored repetition.With the frequent & common use of GPS receivers, I also welcome the use of Lat/Long waypoints in addition to the names of the appropriate topographic quadrangles listed. The only thing I would wish were available for purchasers of the book would be a collection of all the waypoints in the book in a GPX file for easy manipulation & use in mapping software & of course the GPS receivers themselves.A great job nevertheless and a must-buy for Idaho hikers.
This book is a nice encyclopedia to read at home to help planning. The occasional waypoint coordinates are not useful without an accompanying datum. The maps lack a graticule and elevation contours, so they are not useful for field navigation. Maps can be both legible and useful. Those in this guide are merely legible.
Excellent directions; details & maps were all up to date.My only quibble is his descriptions--his "sublime views" weren't--there are far more striking views elsewhere in Idaho--and his "popular" lake had so many visitors it was like visiting a state park on a weekend. But we were glad we did the "Toxaway Loop" anyway.
The single best guide to Idaho be it dayhikes or mountain climbs.
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