No comments about Recreation and Leisure in Modern Society.

No comments about Natives of the Far North: Alaska's Vanishing Culture in the Eye of Edward Sheriff Curtis.

4 comments about Great hot springs of the West.

1. depending on what your looking for you may not want this guide. it has a fairly well established list to many commercial hot springs, but little else. If your looking for hot springs where you can hook up your RV then this guide may work for you. If on the other hand your looking for real, natural hot springs off the beaten path, then this guide is worthless.



2. We have tried one hot spring listing and enjoyed our hot soak, found one shut down, one remodeling and one a bit too pricey for us. Would like to see some reference to actual costs rather than than reasonable or free or deluxe. One place inacessible without 4 wheel drive but we will keep trying, the maps are good.



3. This book does a great public disservice. The information in the book has not been updated in years and is terribly outdated. Quite a bit of the information is absolutely wrong. Send the publisher a message - don't buy the book until they update it. Save your money, there are much better, current books out there such as "Hot Springs and Hot Pools of the Southwest" & Northwest - which are updated ever two years



4. The only useful thing about this writer's books on hot springs are the USGS maps and the latitude/longitudes. I bought a book of his nearly 20 years ago and was thoroughly dissatisfied, & was incensed when it seemed to me he was more interested in providing info for the land yacht crowd. I wonder if his book alleging that the lunar landings were hoaxes is any better. I doubt it. He probably denies the Holocaust took place, too. If you want a book on hot springs, check out Jayson Loam's books. They are much better. If you want info on faked lunar landings, get the movie "Capricorn One."

No comments about Places To Go With Children In The Southwest.

4 comments about Hiking Grand Canyon National Park.

1. We used this book exclusively to pick the trails we wanted to attempt. The book was very helpful, explaining details such as elevation change, estimated hike times to various points on the trails, and ratings of the trails' difficulty. The book also included directions to each trailhead, and other information such as weather and hiking conditons. We had our 6 and 9 year olds with us, and the book contained a listing of easy to difficult day hikes for families. I found this book very valuable in preparation for our daily hikes into the Grand Canyon.



2. This is considered the definitive guide for hiking in the Grand Canyon and the strong points of this book are worth noting. The maps are excellent, as are the descriptions of how to get to trail head. However, the book is incomplete in certain areas and outdated. The Grand Canyon has implemented a shuttle system to stem the horrific crowds (I don't see much improvement) and hikers now can't drive to the South Kaibab trail or Hermit's Rest trail. The directions in this book are therefore rendered confusing due to the new restrictions.

   Most importantly, the authors neglect to stress that in order to successfully complete long hikes at the Grand Canyon, you must be physically prepared. Several times a year I hike to Phantom Ranch at the Colorado river and then back on the Bright Angel Trail. This is nine and a half miles one way with an elevation gain of 5,000 feet. Oftentimes I pass many sick, debilitated and unprepared hikers who quite obviously didn't do any physical preparation for this hike. Physically fit people should be able to do it in 3-4 hours coming up, but many are stuck on the trail for 12 hours and suffering. This could be avoided by exercising and hiking for months in advance in order to enjoy and relish the spectacular experience. Another fabulous challenge is doing a rim to rim hike, but only for those FIT.

   The author does detail the debilitating and life-threatening heat conditions that exist in the Canyon. I recommend to anyone planning long hikes *not* to attempt them in the summer! Temperatures frequently exceed 110 degrees and heat exhaustion and/or heat stroke can result. The best months to hike in the Grand Canyon are October, November and April.

   The Grand Canyon (even with the terrible crowds) is a sublime experience and Phantom Ranch is the best part of the canyon. Forget the mule and use your own two feet. It's a magical experience, a great hike and one you will want to do again and again!




3. The overview and locator maps proved very useful. Posting the elevation gain and loss (as well as a plot showing where these occured) was very helpful in negotiating the trails. Precautions and general hiking information in the front sections of the book were very thorough.



4. To me, this is the Grand Canyon book to get if you are planning on hiking the trails. It has great illustrations of the trails and elevations. You can easily follow the trail illustrations from one trail to another because they tell you the page number of the connecting trail. The textual descriptions are excellent and very easy to follow. The trails are broken up logically and are easy to piece together for extended trips into the canyon. If you are looking for a book with telephone numbers of who to call for reservations and all that, this is not the book. Fine with me because that information is always changing and isn't that what they made the internet for? The size is a bit large to be considered a pocket book but is easily packable. The size actually helps with the illustrated maps as it makes them what I consider to be perfect for trail use. I prefer to make copies (which I did not do if it is a violation of some copyright) of the trails I am going to hike and leave the book behind. The copies are handy for the inevitable rain that always comes. Put them in a zip lock bag with the one you need on top...this book does not stress much about people being physically prepared to hike the canyon. If they don't physically prepare, what makes you think they bother to read before they hit the trail? I have yet to see a sick person on the trail with a book about the canyon in their hand. The book does rate each of the trails with regard to difficulty. I have several books on the Grand Canyon and for planning and hiking the trails, this is the one I would recommend over all the others.

No comments about Rand McNally Oklahoma State Map (State Maps-USA).

No comments about Columbia's River: The Voyages of Robert Gray, 1787-1793.

No comments about Touring the Backroads of North Carolina's Upper Coast (Touring the Backroads).

2 comments about Access Seattle (4th ed).

1. I really liked how well Seattle was described, though in a very general manner. Small glimpses of the city were given and well critiqued. Very helpful, even for relocation.



2. This is as good as a guidebook can get.

   It is concise- it is not a encylopedia volume to lug around town; It is informative- with history of the city and its surroundings, the book is very thorough and written very very well; It is well illustrated- restaurants, hotels, attractions are color-coded differently and there are a ton of great illustrations that really do justice to the charm of the city.

   Despite having grown up in Seattle, this book opened my eyes to a whole new world of places to go and restaurants to check out that I previously didn't see.

   I would like to shake the hand of the man who put together such a fine guidebook- I have one for the Washington DC area as well!

5 comments about A Viking Voyage: In Which an Unlikely Crew of Adventurers Attempts an Epic Journey to the New World.

1. Hodding Carter's tale of his adventures in building and sailing an "authentic" replica of a viking knarr is a wonderful story of how all one needs for adventure is passion and friends. The very best part of this book is that it truly makes you believe that you could have done it yourself or at least that you can make your own crazy dream come true. Too often, the travel adventure stories we read are written by men with more means or skills than the average man can muster. Hodding Carter had no significant sailing skills or money yet he raised over $500,000 and with his passion and research put together a rag-tag group of viking wannabes and assembled a team committed to building their boat and reliving as best possible a true viking voyage.

   Carter's writing style is quite funny and he in fact makes fun of himself at pretty much every opportunity. His dedication to making the knarr, the voyage, and even his attire as historically accurate is truly admirable and makes for a wonderful read.




2. meant to bring attention to the author, who previously had placed second in the Louisiana Oyster Eating Contest. (I'm not kidding. The author says so.) He realized he needed to come up with something better than that if he was to gain wide public recognition and managed to talk Land's End into putting up a million or so to back him. The account's not very well written, and the author admits he knows little about the sea or sailing or the Norse. Not surprisingly, many of his "facts" are wrong. It's not completely worthless, just not very good. Such a voyage should have made wonderful adventure reading.



3. To some, Americans are best examplified as a people "blundering into success". This book is certain to reinforce that view. Carter relates the assembling of an "unlikely crew" to duplicate a "Viking" voyage from Greenland to North America. The voyage required two attempts [as you learn from the map preceding the text], and succeeded only after hilarious and desperate adventures. But it did succeed.

   Carter's account is intensely personal as he explains his motives to duplicate the "Viking" [apparently Carter was never taught the word "Norse"] voyages leading to the "Vinland" landings. Long debated, "Vinland" became a real place with the revelation of a Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland-Labrador in the 1960s. With Norse voyages to "Vinland" recorded in 1000 CE, Carter's target date of exactly one millenium later seemed appropriate.

   The only hitches were that Carter didn't know how to sail, didn't know anything about the Norse, their history, their boatbuilding techniques or their navigation methods. A shaky start compounded by a crew of similar qualifications. During the voyages, personality clashes make their inevitable appearance. Although discussions about the route to follow are understandable, the debate over toilet paper use seems almost a diversion. The primary issue of discussion is the rudder - it's shape, use and mounting. That question remains fundamental since the rudder determines as much as the winds which track is best.

   By the time you close the final page of this book, it's difficult to avoid feeling emotionally soiled. Carter reaches his thirty-sixth birthday on this voyage. The writing, however, is more in line with that of a sixteen-year old. Carter spends so much time at whingeing about missing his family, self-abasement over his inadequacies as a "leader", recounting the losses of wives and girlfriends by his mates, that reaching the Newfoundland coast seems anticlimatic. That this inept and mismatched team survived a journey that once took countless lives is hardly reassuring. If ever the gods were arbitrary in their machinations, they seemed to have proved it here. That an amatuer crew survived an expedition against all odds is a mildly entertaining read, but hardly an inspirational one. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]




4. Carter is the man. The priggish "extreme sports" types and those who fancy themselves "authentic" risk takers will no doubt miss the boat on this one. WIth the world fully wired and mapped, the notions of conquest and exploration must be experienced through a different lens. Carter provides a comical contemporary description of his journey- part historical reenactment. part adventure (with rational modern back up), and part philosophical investigation of modern life. A terrific read.



5. Hodding Carters boyish enthusiasm and matched only by his ignorance of all things nautical, lays the ground work for this humorous tale of reenacting a Viking oddysey. Carter relentlesly pursues Viking history to gain knowledge for building a recreation of Leif Erikssons square rigged knarr. Dogged determination coupled with old world craftmanship, brings the boat to life and Carter assembles his crew for the voyage to Greenland. Carter candidly re-counts the personal difficulties experienced with his fellow 'vikings' but tended to bore the reader with his introspection and worries (particularly towards the end of the trip). Nevertheless, a great adventure that takes you to the most unspoiled territory on earth and a pretty good read.