[.ca] Foghorn California Hiking: The Complete Guide to More ... (ISBN 1566914876)

From Amazon.com:
There are few corners of California in which Tom Stienstra has not set Vibram-soled foot at one time or another. In this information-packed guidebook, the longtime San Francisco Chronicle outdoors columnist catalogues the best (and the rest) of the Golden State's trails, combining his encyclopedic knowledge with that of another accomplished trekker, Ann Marie Brown. The two cover more than a thousand hikes that range from short jaunts to multiday expeditions, rating each walk for length and difficulty and providing notes on water sources, points of interest, permits, contacts, and other useful data. At the most demanding end of the scale, for example, is a 14-mile scramble up Mount Shasta, for which they recommend that you carry an ice ax and crampons; on the moderate side is the 10.6-mile ramble through Pine Valley, in the coastal mountains above Big Sur, with "an up-and-down course that soon becomes more down than up"; and on the easy end is a 1.2-mile round-trip amble along the Desert View Nature Trail near the summit of Southern California's Laguna Mountain. In every instance, Stienstra and Brown tell what you can expect to see and where you're likely to encounter trouble in the form of storms, predatory mammals, or crowds. Thoroughly updated, this is by far the best single source of information on planning a hiking trip in California. --Gregory McNamee

great hiking guide:
This is the ultimate guide for California hiking! The descriptions were concise and provided all the information I needed to pick a hike that suited my needs. If you have room for one hiking guide- this is it.

Refinement Needed:
There's a ton of paper in this book, overboard, in my opinion. Wading through the pages in search of a hike is downright laborious. I've taken quite a few of the Sierra hikes and the information hasn't been detailed enough to really give me a feel for what to expect on the trail. They miscalculated the mileage and sometimes the elevation. I think it would be a better book if they chopped out half of the listings and concentrated on the truly best hikes in California.

Nice revision of a popular guide:
California Hiking by Tom Steinstra and Ann Marie Brown has become something of a Bible to hikers over the years. This edition has some dramatic changes in format from previous versions of the book. Most obviously, the chapters cover much larger sections of the state. Whereas earlier editions used a narrow (and quite artificial grid) to place hikes, the 2003 guide divides the state into 16 chapters, each covering a broad geographical area of the state: from the Northern Redwoods to the Southern Deserts, and everything in between. Other changes include a longer introduction, with hiker safety tips, and the absence of Steinstra's amusing commentary on the Pacific Crest Trail. The latter was too general to be used by through hikers in any event. Finally a few trails were added or deleted. On the whole, the new edition is an improvement over the last version. Placing hikes in a broad geographical area allows for easier planning of vacations. Still, with any guide this comprehensive, there are bound to be some problems: obviously the authors could not walk every trail listed every couple of years. Generally speaking, Tom Steinstra tends to underestimate miles. Local guides I've read and trails I've hiked tend to suggest more than his descriptions denote. Also, Steinstra requires more effort to give a hike a high difficulty rating than Brown does. Ultimately, this book should not be relied upon for detailed information. Things like trail maps and detailed trail descriptions simply have no room in guide this comprehensive. The book is already a bit too bulky. Nonetheless, this book does give one a nice overview of various sections of the state. It is particularly helpful for travel. It can give someone a brief listing of hikes in an area and suggest a productive use of vacation times. People who do a lot of hiking in one particular area, however, would do well to purchase detailed guides that concentrate on a much smaller region. Living in the San Bernardino Mountains, I found little of use in this book. But it was invaluable on my recent trip to Humbolt Redwoods and vicinity. If you travel the state and like to hike, this book is well worth the price.

Must have if you're a California hiker:
My wife and I have really gotten our money's worth out of this book over the past few summmers. Perfect for those who love hiking, but need somewhere to go. It's full of great day hikes and a few decent packpacking trips as well. My only complaint is that I'd really like to see a lot more of the 20 mile weekend backpacking trips added to the book. Regardless, it's well worth picking up.

Awesome guide, but...:
This book is an almost perfect guide to hiking in Northern California. It's UNBELIEVABLY thorough. My only two quibbles are: 1. Directions to trailheads are a little iffy in places, and (perhaps more importantly) 2. The difficulty ratings are sometimes waaay off. The book uses a 1 (easiest) through 5 (most difficult) difficulty rating. And yesterday, my husband and I went on a hike in the east bay area that the book deemed a 1 in difficulty, and it was considerably more difficult than many 3s we've hiked in the past. What's up with that?! If an inexperienced hiker showed up in tennis shoes relying on that 1 rating, that person could potentially be in physical danger in places. Having said all that, we've used this book for nearly 3 years and have found it completely spot-on when it comes to identifying beautiful hikes. It's been particularly useful when we've been vacationing in a part of the state with which we're not very familiar. I recommend using this book as a way to identify awesome hikes you want to try, but then you should contact the state/national/whatever park you're about to visit and get more detailed information about the hike before embarking on it.