View Full Version : Which state trail guide the best / worst
earlyriser26
12-16-2010, 05:48
I have most of the 10 or so trail guide books and they all seem to take very different approaches. Some have detail, others like the more recent Maine guides have decided to leave all the detail out. Some spend half the guide on history, geography, birds, etc. Which guides do you like and why? which ones can do better.
Are you talking about the set of guidebooks the ATC puts out? If Maine lef all the detail out, what did they leave in a 172 page book?
I have most of the 10 or so trail guide books and they all seem to take very different approaches. Some have detail, others like the more recent Maine guides have decided to leave all the detail out. Some spend half the guide on history, geography, birds, etc. Which guides do you like and why? which ones can do better.
The mile by mile description of the Maine trail is printed on the back of the maps. The guide is devoted to safety concerns, history, and other such matters.
Blissful
12-16-2010, 11:25
Honestly I don't use the guides. Too heavy and cumbersome.
Honestly I don't use the guides. Too heavy and cumbersome.
The guides are mostly useful for planning and reference, not for carrying.
Kerosene
12-16-2010, 15:59
I photocopy the relevant guidebook pages for my section hike and shrink them down to fit 8 to a page, 16 front and back. Yep, it takes a bit of cutting and pasting, and you'll want to use a high-duty copier, but I only need a few pages to cover 100-150 miles.
As I always bring a map, I really like the Maine maps with the relevant milepoints intertwined.
The guides are mostly useful for planning and reference, not for carrying.
I very much like good guidebooks, whether ATC or not. I often will carry one on a dayhike, and I really like Kerosene's idea of shrink-copying the guides in order to carry on-trail. They often come in handy. The maps are very good, especially when detailed, but the guides give more context. They often have errors, and of course the elements can always change the trail, much less re-routings, but I like them.