2 comments about Santa Fe in a Week: More or Less.

1. I love this book. It is so helpful and chock full of information.
   Now that I have a computer I really appreciate all the email addresses.
   The writting is clear and full of information and the photos are really nice and also helpful. This book will make my next trip to Santa Fe more enjoyable and easy to plan.



2. When I first received this book I was dismayed because it included alot of web links. However, after I started reading it I realized it was really a very good condensed book chock full of information and one doesn't have to go to the links in order to enjoy this book. We're going to Santa Fe for one week and this book has been a great help in narrowing down exactly where we want to go and what we want to do. I highly recommend it.

1 comments about Mountain Biking Albuquerque.

1. From cover to cover this guide allows you to follow it's contents easily and affectively. You won't be wasting your ride time figuring out where to go. The maps are easy to read, giving you just the right information. There are graphs that show you distance in relation to elevation, a real helpful tool in guaging if this ride will be what you want. It also discribes terrain and gives a scale of difficulty to aide in the decision making. I enjoy carring this book with me when I ride because it is so easy to use. I would highly recomend this and other Falcon guides to any avid mountain biker like myself.

5 comments about Along the High Road: A Guide to the Scenic Route Between Espanola and Taos, New Mexico.

1. Before reading "Along the High Road" I didn't know that there was a second chapel at Chimayo or that tin was known as "poor man's silver" or that there are more than a dozen places to stay overnight along the road. This book was well worth the purchase price. I even bought a couple extra for family and friends.



2. I've lived in New Mexico all my life and never knew there was so much to do on the High Road. Like many other people, I usually drove the road on my way to someplace else. Now, after reading this book, I'm going to take my time.



3. I loved this book even though I was a little put off by the bland cover. I know we all know the saying "Don't judge a book...." and I'm glad I didn't go by the saying because I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it to be filled with insightful facts and stories that I haven't read elsewhere. This was a great buy and a fascinating and very useful book. Anyone traveling to this area would greatly benenfit from reading this well written book.



4. A friend of mine recommended that I read "Along the High Road". I had mentioned that New Mexico was one state that we had not spent much time in as we traveled by motorhome. The book sure opened my eyes, not only to what New Mexico has to offer, but how much we probably have missed by hurrying thru other states.
   Margaret really does a grand job in not only telling of the history of the area between Espanola and Taos, but also what awaits today's traveler who takes the time to "smell the roses". Great book and waiting for more from Margaret.



5. I would have said a waste of time, but it only takes about 45 minutes to read the entire book, cover to cover. If you want the cliff notes on travel in New Mexico, I guess this would kind of be the book for you-- even though it's a little brief for that, too.
   
   I'm really just perplexed as to the point of this book. The small amount of actual writing in the book is fine, and the pictures are kind of quaint and rustic, but the book doesn't really TELL you anything. About anything. There is a paragraph on most topics. You will find out stuff like: there is indigenous pottery, weaving and metal-working in New Mexico. Or that you can find good southwestern food, with chilies, and that they are one of the state's contributions to American cuisine. Et cetera.
   
   Buy the "The Hidden New Mexico" book (can't recall the author) if you are looking for a nice overview of interesting sites in the state. It may not turn over a huge amount of anything too 'hidden,' but it is a nice guidebook for pretty much any taste.

4 comments about New Mexico's Wilderness Areas: The Complete Guide (Wilderness Guidebooks).

1. This is a guide that the hikers, desert rats, and general wilderness afficionados of New Mexico have long been in need of. It is the first truly comprehensive guide to both the known and "desperately need to be known about and protected" areas in the land of enchantment. Not only does it offer good general info about the areas but their historical significance, why they qualify as wilderness, and how people can access the areas. The more major areas all have some additional text, which is clear and intriguing. Also nice are the authors "favorite hikes" for some areas - they are an excellent starting point for the hiker with a limited schedule. The photos which accompany some areas are also spectacular. I have but a few gripes with the book and they are as follows: Some areas could use a little more description - especially about why they are so ecologically important. It would also be nice if the maps were a little better, but they are quite adequate. However my most major complaint lies not with the book itself, It is such a good guide that my "secret" areas will scarce remain secrets...



2. I honestly don't see why anyone found this book useful. I was totally fooled into buying it by the positive reviews here! The first thing that happened was that I looked at the front page map of the entire state to find out what areas were near the town I will be in for an upcoming trip. The map had lots of highways marked with NO TOWNS OR CITIES. Now maybe New Mexicans all memorized the highway map of their state, but for a visitor the lack of any towns or cities made this key map pretty much useless. The book has lots of nice photos on glossy pages, and gives tons of information on history and ecology of the various wilderness areas. It mentions some hikes and climbs and gives sketchy verbal directions, but if you are looking for a climbing or hiking guide to New Mexico this book is pretty much useless. The "maps" it has for the different areas are not topo maps, but just line maps of some surrounding roads and trails. I bought this book to help me plan some hikes and maybe easy peak climbs while I was in northern New Mexico. If I could return it I would, it will not be useful at all. If you are looking for a climbing guide, or even a guide to serious hiking in New Mexico don't get this book or you will be just as disappointed as I was!



3. Despite reviews by people from out of state, this book is an excellent source of information on the Wilderness areas of New Mexico. I only hope they update it soon with any new information. This is obviously not meant to be a hiking guide and is not the reason i purchased it. Finding a good source of all of the wilderness areas of the state on the internet was troublesome, even for me, who surfs a lot. While i could get a good list of the wilderness areas out of the gazeteer, i couldn't get a list of wilderness study areas. The book also gives some trail suggestions which are very helpful, but in the end, i went to other sources. Maybe my honoroble friend from Colorado should stay up there and leave the wilderness areas of New Mexico to us.



4. This book is good at what it is intended to be: an introduction and overview of the different wilderness and wilderness study areas in New Mexico. No hiker/backpacker should rely solely on this book however, so if that is what you're expecting to be able to do, you will be disappointed. Each section describes the wilderness area, lists the basics (elevations, best season, map references) and lists a couple of hikes, and has a very basic map of the area with the trails, access roads, and campgrounds. Once you've found the area you're interested in based on the author's fantastic descriptions, you'll need to get a topo map of that area in order to actually do the hike (but personally, I'd rather carry a topo map in my pack that is specific to my hike than lug a book around). And no, the overall map in the front doesn't have cities/towns, but really, how hard is it to tell what part of the state you'll be in?

3 comments about Hiking New Mexico (rev).

1. This publication was my first purchase on the subject. Laurence Parent gives you a good detailed trail description. The maps though are poor. A problem with most Falcon Guides. For the casual day hiker this book will do, for the explorer, I would look for another book.



2. I found this book to be very useful.

   I particularly liked the start of each hike information- This helps me to decide in a quick second whether I want to read the rest of the information and consider this hike or not. The information includes the level of difficulty, location, attractions, maps to get, and other important information. The maps were very useful in determining starting points and ending points for planning purposes.

   I found that the level of difficulty was accurate. This is very important to me because I'm a non hiker to very easy type of hiker.

   My only comment would be that many of the pictures didn't add to the text and could have been left out.




3. This is your typical Falcon book. It does give you a good overview of many popular (and a few obscure) hikes in the state -but with info and maps that sometimes are lacking. And of course, the size of NM and its numerous wilderness oppurtunities makes this or any hiking book attempting to cover the whole state rather ambitious. This is a general guide by neccessity.
   
   If you know what area of NM you would like to concentrate your exploring in, I would recommend one of the area specific Falcon guides (Gila, Carlsbad, Aldo Leopold, etc) or a book by a different publisher instead of this overview. These other books offer a lot more detail and don't have to skip popular and obvious localized hikes for a lack of space.

   I consider myself adept at reading maps and directions (what guy doesn't think that?) but I found some of the directions and maps in the book to be overly simplified or outdated. (As compared to "100 Hikes in New Mexico" - which is a better generalized guide). I particularly ran into this with the trails described in the White Mt. Wilderness. This also re-taught me that no guide book is no substitute for a good trail map if an extended backpacking trip is planned.

   After these critiques of the book, I do have to say it is a strong general guide in many ways that will give you a decent overview of NM hiking oppurtunities. The author's descriptions of trail difficulties are accurate and reasonable and the elevation charts in Falcon guides are very helpful. Aside from the instance mentioned above - the general descriptions of the hikes and the directions to the trailheads tend to be accurate.

2 comments about Saddle Up, New Mexico: The Statewide Horse Trail and Travel Guide.

1. This is a well written book that all trail riders in new mexico must own. You'll love it. The authors personnally rode every trail in their book and have outlined it beautifully. They wrote this book because no one else had and they noted a need for it.
   
   Donna Ketcheson, Back Country Horseman



2. This is a terrific guide to trail riding in New Mexico. This book gave valuable information on trail riding, camping with your horses and general information about trail riding gear. I would highly recommend this book for anyone visiting or living here in New Mexico.

3 comments about Day of Trinity.

1. This book is not entirely based on interviews with the scientists and other higher-ups at Los Alamos. It was written in large part using interviews with the "lesser" folks who were there... cooks, security guards, federal agents, family members of scientists, officers, etc. Mix those interviews in with all the historical information and you get a great alternate perspective on what it was like to have been stationed at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project years. A terrific book, and well worth reading if you can locate a copy.



2. Lansing Lamont takes an otherwise dry and sterile subject and turns it into a fictional type thrillride. This account of a momentous event matches anything that has been authored by Clancy or Crichton with one distinct differance...this actually happened.



3. This work is a highly readable look into the story behind the first atomic bomb. Some very minor factual innaccuracies can be discounted due to the lack of unclassified information available to the author at the time of writing (such as the presence of Einstein at Los Alamos).

   The book does a fine job of looking beyond the story and into the lives and personalities of the players. Excellent photo section, with what are probably the first-ever published diagrams of the general design of the Trinity bomb.

   Required reading for those interested in the most important story of WWII.

No comments about A Travel Guide to the Plains Indian Wars.

1 comments about The World Map, 1300--1492: The Persistence of Tradition and Transformation (Published in cooperation with the Center for American Places, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Staunton, Virginia).

1. THE WORLD MAP 1300-1492: THE PERSISTENCE OF TRADITION AND TRANSFORMATION is an excellent choice for any college-level collection strong in cartographic or world history: it investigates the state of maps before Columbus, beginning with a 1436 atlas of ten maps produced by Bianco and using maps of the 14th and 15th centuries to consider how missionaries and merchants changed the state and presentation of the world. Makers and users of maps struggled with both technological change and changing world views brought on by discover, and mapmakers often blended old and new worlds to reconcile tensions between opposing viewpoints. The result is a fine, unusual perspective of world history and cartographic influences.

1 comments about Christine Mather's Santa Fe Christmas.

1. I am new to Santa Fe and bought this book to learn about some of the beautiful traditions here. It exceeded my expectations with lovely photographs and detailed explanations of many traditions you would expect from this wonderful city. I especially enjoyed the recipes! If you live in Santa Fe or dream of living here like I have for many years, this is a must have!