Product Description
This updated sixth edition describes 138 dayhikes and backpack trips in Banff, Jasper, Kootenay, Yoho, and Waterton national parks, as well as Mt. Robson and Assiniboine provincial parks. Here’s the discerning advice you need to create rewarding adventures. This guide rates and reviews trips as Premier, Outstanding, Worthwhile, or Don’t Do. 280 color photos reveal this stunning wilderness. Trail maps for each trip enhance the comprehensive route descriptions…. More >>
Don’t Waste Your Time In The Canadian Rockies: The Opinionated Hiking Guide
#1 by Nomad of Eden on April 17, 2010 - 1:09 am
I bought this book about 4 years ago. It’s the main thing I’d definitly not want to leave at home when crossing the U.S. border on my way north. I’d love to bump into the authors on a trail, or better yet, depart a trail head with them, one that they selected, carring about four days worth of high carbs in our packs. Hmmmm? Wait a minute . . . actually . . . their book sucks. The Canadian Rockies suck. Don’t go there, don’t buy this book. And absolutely don’t do any of the hikes they rate highly. Buy a book about hiking in Colorado or some place else.
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by Mountain Boy on April 17, 2010 - 2:46 am
I just don’t see why I would use a book that recommends NOT doing some hikes. Why reading about why a hike is NOT good? For a reason NOT to go hiking on a day I feel lazy? I always supposed that hiking guidebooks in general contain hikes that are recommended by the author. The book has a lot of upsides, but a large portion of it seems useless to me.
Rating: 2 / 5
#3 by G. Smith on April 17, 2010 - 4:51 am
I bought this book to help me choose hikes in the Rockies. I selected appropriate hikes that were of moderate or easy difficulty and of a reasonable length for day hiking — under 12 kilometres. I arrived in the Rockies to discover that most of these hikes were out of bounds due to bears. I went back to the book to find other hikes that would be as good. Those were also closed. I then went to the tourist building in Banff and was advised which hikes would be appropriate. They were excellent. I then cross referenced with the book to see what the book said about them. The book had given them all poor ratings primarily because of the presence of other hikers — the only thing that made them safe. I actually don’t mind meeting a few people on a hike if it means that I don’t get mauled by a bear. I also discovered that hikes the book called easy or moderate were in fact ones I would rate as moderate or challenging respectively. They had no category for expert, which is doubtless what many of their “chalenging” hikes would be. In short, the book wasted my time with its insistence on isolated and excessively difficult hikes that are in fact beyond all but the fittest and most expert hikers willing to brave bears (but be sure to travel in a group of six or more, as required by the Park — not exactly isolation in nature anyway) but unwilling to tolerate people sharing the trail.
Rating: 2 / 5
#4 by Chris on April 17, 2010 - 5:11 am
Some of the best trails I’ve ever hiked, I have found in this book and the Southern BC book.
Their top rated hikes will blow you away. Truly spectacular scenery. In addition, they highlight some lesser know but awesome hikes with a great sense of remoteness.
The opinions and rating set this book apart from other guide books. Clearly the authors have hiked all the trails in this book and others in an attempt to find the best ones. For each hike, they will tell you what is good and bad about the trail. This is invaluable for getting on the best trails. Other hiking books tend to leave out the editorial and this will leave you guessing if the hike is really what you want.
This is a great book and it got me on some really great trails.
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by Daniel Parisian on April 17, 2010 - 6:48 am
My wife & I are from Houston, Texas and our annual backpacking trips are the only time we get to see the mountains. Because of this, every trip is precious to us and I always do extensive research on deciding on where to go. After reading this book, we ended up doing a trip that has turned out to be one our favorites of all times – a 2007 trip to Assiniboine.
We hiked in from Sunshine Village and saw spectacular scenery from the minute we started the trip. We ended up base camping near Lake Magog and doing several of the recommended day trips – all of which still rank as some of the most beautiful scenery we’ve ever seen. The advice in this book was spot-on: the high spots were truly amazing (Lake Magog, Nub Peak and Windy Ridge) and the “low” points were indeed mundane (Camp Porcupine wasn’t bad, but not nearly as beautiful as everything else).
This book was helpful for the following reasons:
At the start of the book, all 138 hikes are listed with their rating (1-4 Bootprints – 4 being the best), the type of trip (backpacking, day hikes, or shoulder season trip) and overview maps to show where everything is in relation to each other. This makes zeroing in a trip very quick and easy.
More importantly, once you find a trip that peaks your interest, the candid advice about each trip really lets you know what to expect: how good is the scenery, is one trail better than another to get to a point of interest, how crowded/popular the trail is, and any other fact about a trail that will help you make a decision.
When I did my planning for our 2007 trip, I found 3-4 trips that really interested me and started reading in detail about each trip. The advice was clear enough for me to quickly figure out which type of trip suited our hiking style. Most guidebooks only offer pages and pages of descriptions about the trail, but never strong opinions (usually leaving me to search the internet for the opinion of others). While this book has the pages and pages of trail description, it was the opinions offered in this book that made the difference and allowed me to quickly decide on a trip.
For anyone planning a trip to the Canadian Rockies, I’d highly recommend this book. And if you’re up for it, don’t miss Assiniboine – it was AMAZING!
Rating: 5 / 5