A Tale of Two Guidebooks
Since merhawk and I enjoy hiking in the great outdoors so much we have collected quite a bit of equipment over the years to help make each trip better. Some of this gear is the obvious stuff you'd think of when we mention hiking: comfortable boots, good socks, lightweight packs. But one type of gear that's equally important is a guidebook. A guidebook provides critical information such as trail descriptions, ratings, and directions.
One of the first hiking guidebooks we bought was back in late 1996 or early 1997. We'd just moved to California and we needed a reference guide to help us appreciate the wealth of options in our new home. We browsed a local books-and-mortar bookstore (remember when those were on every corner?) and found a copy of California Hiking by Tom Stienstra and Ann Marie Brown.
I think what drew us to the book initially was its size. It was thick. It listed 1000 hikes. (I think the cover a few editions back actually said 1,001.) For our first guidebook we wanted something broad and comprehensive.
Of course, we didn't buy the book based on weight alone. We browsed through it in the store and noted that it had a very lucid organization and rated each trip for both difficulty and scenery. That appealed to us because it would help us make well informed choices as we learned more about the wealth of great hiking trails in California.
Over the 19 years since then our first impressions have proven true and valuable countless times. The book is comprehensive, detailed, lucid, and accurate. In addition, the lead author's editorial voice shines through clearly with an abundant love of the outdoors.
We've worn the book ragged several times, replacing it with newer editions. Over the years the publisher has changed names. The cover art has changed each edition. One previous edition quipped "The hiker's bible!" on the cover. I wouldn't call it a bible; it's actually far more useful! It's more of a desk-reference encyclopedia. Anyway, though the cover of the book has changed over the years, the good stuff that's inside has not.
Because the California hiking book has been such an excellent reference, we did not hesitate to buy its sister book, Pacific Northwest Hiking by Judd and Nelson, to guide us to hikes in Oregon and Washington.
This PacNW has the same organization as the beloved California book, and it has the same types of ratings for both difficulty and scenery, but frankly it falls flat. It falls flat because it doesn't have Stienstra's editorial voice. Instead it has a pair of authors who come across as, frankly, having a love-hate relationship with the great outdoors.
Sure, Judd and Nelson love the outdoors. That part comes through clearly. But even more clear in their writing is that they hate people. A good many of their trail descriptions are filled with grousing about how crowded the trails and how much that makes them hard to enjoy. Even their "on a scale of 1 to 10" ratings for scenery- which are brilliant in Stienstra's book and make it easy to identify the most outstanding hikes in any area- downgrade the most beautiful trails because they are popular. Anything that seems it would be a candidate for 10/10 in terms of scenery is busy with hikers who want to enjoy it, and thus the authors downgrade it to no higher than an 8 because it's too crowded. As a result there is comically no trail I've found yet in their book that they rate a 10/10.
This has made it a challenge to choose hikes on our visit to the Cascades this wekeend. There are tons of hikes nearby, but choosing the few to visit for a wonderful experience requires carefully reading between the lines of dozens of entries, rather than flipping through and looking for ratings of 9 and 10. The authors' bad attitudes defeat the entire purpose of the rating system, which is one of key components of this kind of guide.
One of the first hiking guidebooks we bought was back in late 1996 or early 1997. We'd just moved to California and we needed a reference guide to help us appreciate the wealth of options in our new home. We browsed a local books-and-mortar bookstore (remember when those were on every corner?) and found a copy of California Hiking by Tom Stienstra and Ann Marie Brown.
I think what drew us to the book initially was its size. It was thick. It listed 1000 hikes. (I think the cover a few editions back actually said 1,001.) For our first guidebook we wanted something broad and comprehensive.
Of course, we didn't buy the book based on weight alone. We browsed through it in the store and noted that it had a very lucid organization and rated each trip for both difficulty and scenery. That appealed to us because it would help us make well informed choices as we learned more about the wealth of great hiking trails in California.
Over the 19 years since then our first impressions have proven true and valuable countless times. The book is comprehensive, detailed, lucid, and accurate. In addition, the lead author's editorial voice shines through clearly with an abundant love of the outdoors.
We've worn the book ragged several times, replacing it with newer editions. Over the years the publisher has changed names. The cover art has changed each edition. One previous edition quipped "The hiker's bible!" on the cover. I wouldn't call it a bible; it's actually far more useful! It's more of a desk-reference encyclopedia. Anyway, though the cover of the book has changed over the years, the good stuff that's inside has not.
Because the California hiking book has been such an excellent reference, we did not hesitate to buy its sister book, Pacific Northwest Hiking by Judd and Nelson, to guide us to hikes in Oregon and Washington.
This PacNW has the same organization as the beloved California book, and it has the same types of ratings for both difficulty and scenery, but frankly it falls flat. It falls flat because it doesn't have Stienstra's editorial voice. Instead it has a pair of authors who come across as, frankly, having a love-hate relationship with the great outdoors.
Sure, Judd and Nelson love the outdoors. That part comes through clearly. But even more clear in their writing is that they hate people. A good many of their trail descriptions are filled with grousing about how crowded the trails and how much that makes them hard to enjoy. Even their "on a scale of 1 to 10" ratings for scenery- which are brilliant in Stienstra's book and make it easy to identify the most outstanding hikes in any area- downgrade the most beautiful trails because they are popular. Anything that seems it would be a candidate for 10/10 in terms of scenery is busy with hikers who want to enjoy it, and thus the authors downgrade it to no higher than an 8 because it's too crowded. As a result there is comically no trail I've found yet in their book that they rate a 10/10.
This has made it a challenge to choose hikes on our visit to the Cascades this wekeend. There are tons of hikes nearby, but choosing the few to visit for a wonderful experience requires carefully reading between the lines of dozens of entries, rather than flipping through and looking for ratings of 9 and 10. The authors' bad attitudes defeat the entire purpose of the rating system, which is one of key components of this kind of guide.