No comments about Utah Off the Beaten Path, 5th (Off the Beaten Path Series).

3 comments about Veg Out: Denver & Salt Lake City.

1. Finally a guide book for Denver & Boulder that helps me locate healthy & tasty vegetarian food! I found this book easy to access, well organized, and at times, quite funny. Ms. Mather clearly did her research on this and it shows... I wish I had her job!



2. Let me start by saying I think guides like this are desperately needed, but also there is a responsibility of the author to provide fair critiques of the restaraunts chosen and I have major difficulties with some of the reviews given. I focus here mostly on the Salt Lake aspects of the guide, being a resident.
   
   My most major problem with the reviews was a three-star review given to a major national chain. The same review of the same chain appears six times in the guide verbatim. This would be fair, except no other national chain restaraunt appears in the guide, and there is no differences between any of the reviews.
   
   It also does not impress me that several exclusively vegetarian restaraunts ratings have been beaten out by restaraunts having few if any vegetarian or vegan fare. In one instance, a one-star restaraunt's review has no constructive criticism of the food from the establisment, but in the notes above considers the ambience "dingy". In another instance, vegetables accompanying a curry dish (potatoes, baby carrots, and onions) are considered "bland-looking" and needed some "green for both color and taste" - I thought these were the traditional accompaniment for a curried dish and the point was to be bland to offset the curry?
   
   Without nit-picking too much more, the guide is a welcome and needed, but I hope the second edition undergoes a change in the consistancy of the reviews.



3. This may have been at one time a good guide, filling a great niche. Unfortunately at this time it is three years old. I found too many errors- specifically reviews and listings for restaurants that have closed, changed names/owners- for it to be trustworthy or even that useful. Granted, I live in the Boulder area and know most of the vegetarian restaurants here and in Denver, so I bought it to find those that I don't know of. Those listed in the guide may or may not even exist anymore.

2 comments about National Geographic Driving Guide to America, Southwest (NG Driving Guides).

1. This is a good sightseeing guide that should help anyone who is interested in traveling the States of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico by car.

   Even if you know you want to see the Grand Canyon, what else do you do in the Northern Arizona / Southern Utah area? This book answers that question.

   Arranged by state, the book highlights different attractions in each area. It also suggests driving loops, designed to hi-light the highlights while traveling a circular route along major highways. This is certainly designed well for someone who is unfamiliar with the area and wants a travel itinerary laid out with suggested sights and attractions.

   Accommodations or restraints are not listed, so one would have to look to another guide or the internet for those. This book can get you started with your destinations, however.




2. Nice pictures but pretty lame as a guide book. Very little in the way of useful information. Go with Roadtrip USA's "California and the Southwest." A GREAT book.

5 comments about Desert Sojourn: A Woman's Forty Days and Nights Alone (Adventura Books).

1. I greatly enjoyed this book...as a thirty-something myself who has gone through a divorce, I could relate to a lot of the emotions and the urge to find oneself. Debi's sojourn into the desert, or at least the concept, is one that I often daydream about as a way of searching out my soul and realizing my purpose. I think she has a lot of courage to face herself alone in isolation as I'm not sure I could sleep so many nights in the wilderness alone without dying of fright. The book was well-written, if not a little whiney, at times.

   However, at the same time, I found numerous things disturbing. First, the author divorces her husband and leaves her child with him, except for holidays. Then she runs off with some literature guru who lets her live with him jobless and complaining for however long. Second, she goes into the wilderness ill-prepared for 40 days alone - no waterproof hiking boots, no warm jacket, etc. For anyone who has ever camped or skied in extreme conditions, they know that those two items are first and foremost on the survival list. What was she thinking when she brought Reeboks and cowboy boots? Third, she would've surely died had not the ranger and his wife provided her with a parka, wood stove and wood, and staple gun. Fourth, she spent half of her time hiding out in her shelter before realizing that she could occupy her time with creating a camp site area that would make her feel at home. It occurred to me while reading that this is the first thing I would've done - explored my area, created a home, and thus felt safe and comfortable.

   Regardless of the frustration, this is a definitely a recommended book.




2. I wouldn't even give this book one star but there is no lower rating. The publisher is at fault for this disaster of a book (they never should have accepted it in the first place) that I hope will someday embarrass the author--the reason I hope that is that eventual embarrassment will show that the author has grown out of whatever strange mental land she was living in when she undertook this sojourn. Others have commented on her lack of proper clothing and equipment so I won't repeat that. What hasn't been mentioned are the food stores she chose to take seemed designed to be not only dreary and monotonous, but extremely constipating. It's as if she deliberately built in self-punishment and failure. I can't remember if she said she did any research before undertaking this fiasco, but it certainly doesn't appear that she did.
   
   Debi, where are you now? In a far better state, I hope. Maybe you had to write this book to get there. Don't be disheartened by all the bad reviews. Sometimes we have to crash through the bottom to come out on the other side. And at the very least, you had the guts to do it, and that counts.



3. I am preparing to spend some time alone in the desert. As I looked through the stacks at my local library Desert Solitaire was checked out - but Desert Sojourn was there on the shelf and I checked it out.
   
   Perhaps it is because I too am yearning for deeper meaning in my life and therefore am listening from the heart - but I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.
   
   It takes great courage to sit with yourself without the escape routes of books, tv, radio, telephones, and all those other distractions.
   
   I was puzzled by some of the reviews - I think they say more about the reviewers than the author.
   
   This is a woman - who was in psychic pain - and she listened to the summons of her soul - and it led her to the desert and deeper into her life.
   
   Because of my interest in Soulcraft (Bill Plotkin) and the work of the animas valley institute (animas.org) this book was a welcome addition to my preparation... and even more so - because I wasn't looking for it - it found me.
   
   Thank you Debi... The world needs wanderers...



4. Since it's been covered already, I won't get into the incredible lack of preparation and education of "her" environment Debi showed. I can only think she was being self-destructive. How else to explain such outright disregard for the wilderness and, dare I say, stupidity?
   I couldn't put this book down, but only because I kept looking for some redemptive qualities. I have no idea what she learned about herself, she seemed to grow very little from her experience and her writing was less than inspiring. I kept waiting for her "Midnight Stalker" to take her out and deliver us all out of her and our misery.
   One thing I appreciated was when she finally acknowledged the help she'd received and realized that "no man is an island." However, she continued to talk about how she had proved she could take care of herself. Ah...really? Without the wood stove and wood, not to mention the correctly-sized staples and staple gun and, oh yeah, the warm jacket, Debi would not have made it.
   I can't remember being so frustrated by a book I've read. I guess that's something...



5. Debi did what few people are willing to do. She told it like it was. She didn't try to make herself appear any other than real, with all that entails. Of course she made mistakes, darlings, that is how we learn. That was what she went into the desert for, to learn, not to get it perfect. And what did she learn? That she was strong, resilient, that despite her sometimes overwhelming fear, she could face it and overcome it. She learned that it was okay to be Debi whatever that might mean. That she didn't have to be any one of the images she'd been trying to fulfill, she could seek her own truth in the silence of her own being. Wonderful !

3 comments about Guide to Fly Fishing in Utah.

1. Just in time for Utah's great fall fly fishing is the latest No Nonsense fly fishing guidebook. The guide packs a lot of information into 77, large format pages. Detailed maps of each fly water show how to get there and where to fish.

   The guide offers a quick, clear understanding of 22 fly fishing waters in Utah, not a lot of other "background" information or falderall. This includes the low down on the top, and the lesser-known waters in Utah's mountains, high desert and plains.

   Mr. Schmidt is qualified to direct fly anglers around the Beehive State. Schmidt owns and operates Western Rivers Fly Shop, the best source of fly fishing information and gear in Salt Lake City. Steve is an avid outdoorsman and among the most knowledgeable fly fishers in the state. His 24 plus years of travels throughout Utah seem to always included a fly rod and time to explore fishing. His years of experience, notes and contacts blend into a comprehensive explanation of the top fly fishing Utah has to offer.

   The "Dean of the Green", fly fishing guide Emmett Heath contributed facts and figures to the section covering The Green, Utah's storied tailwater. This input is extremely valuable for anyone planning to take on the Flaming Gorge to Red Canyon waters.




2. Steve Schmidt's No Nonsense Guide To Fly Fishing In Utah provides the angler with a practical and informative description and guide to twenty-two fly fishing waters throughout Utah. These sites include major and lesser known waters in Utah's mountains, high deserts and plains. Schmidt (owner and operator of Western Rivers Fly Shop, Salt Lake City) draws upon his more than twenty-four years of extensive travels and fishing expertise to provide notes and contacts as part of his comprehensive explanation of the best fly fishing Utah has to offer. Schmidt's informative text is enhanced with detailed maps of each fly water, illustrations on how to get there, where to fish, what flies to use, knots, and more. If you plan on fishing Utah's challenging waters, begin with a leisurely browse through Steve Schmidt's No Nonsense Guide To Fly Fishing In Utah!



3. Living in southwest Utah this book was not very informitive but it does cover some of the hot spots up north. My only real complaint is the author shows a picture of a tiger trout and identifies it as a splake. For the most part this book has good information.

No comments about Utah.

5 comments about Boater's Guide to Lake Powell : Featuring HIKING, Camping, Geology, History & Archaeology.

1. Very informative book however the author (who was born and raised in the USA) has all measurements in meters. He must just be laughing at us complaining about it. I would not purchase the book because if you have hiked for decades and know how long a mile is and know how much ground in miles you can cover in a day and how much water you need for a lets say a 9 mile hike you will be totally frustrated by this book and if your wrong in your 7th grade conversion computation you could be for example out of water before you reach your destination. So you see it's not just annoying it could be dangerous.



2. The emphasis of this book is hiking and is kind of like a boaters guide to hiking canyons. However, It still has lots of usefull information for boaters.
   
   Even though the water levels were allmost 100ft below full on our last visit we still took the authors advice and hiked the narrow slotted canyon at the end of west canyon. This was a highlight of our one week trip and we would have never known about it without this book!
   
   Lake powell is amazingly huge and beutiful. Having this book as a resource was well worth the money and added to the quality of our trip.
   
   It would be nice if there were more books and guides on lake powell. But since this is the only one I found I can't complain much about it.



3. I once read that, "Indexes are among those necessary but never spectacular products of hard as well as skilled work that can sometimes make the difference between a book and good book."
   That said, this is a book.
   And it needs an index.
   It also needs a clearer table of contents, an acceptance that the metric system will never gain popularity in America, fewer photos of the author in tiny shorts, and a complete redesign by someone who understands the value of a clear font and of blank white space between chapters.
   These comments could be said of all of Michael Kelsey's guidebooks--all of which are full of facts, maps, and hikes that are indispensible to exploring the Colorado Plateau, and all of which are incredibly hard to find anything in.
   I wish I could rate this higher, because these guides really have been helpful to me over the years--especially this one--but a guidebook should be easy to use, and its information should be easily accessible.
   I'll keep my fingers crossed for the fifth edition.



4. Good details for hiking from your boat and how to find the interesting historic and archaeologic teasures in an already amazing area.



5. This book is chock full of information on Lake Powell, and it's apparent the author spent a lot of time exploring the lake....many years ago.
   My family and I just returned from a Lake Powell vacation in July 2007, and most of the areas the author talks about are no longer accessible from the lake, or are unrecognizable, due to the current lake level.
   The pictures are obviously dated as evidenced by the outfits visible in the photos.
   All in all I'm not sorry I bought the book, and it has tons of facts about the lake and surrounding area, it just needs to be updated.

2 comments about The Glen Canyon Reader.

1. I have read probably over fifty books about Glen Canyon, Lake Powell, and the San Juan, Escalante, and Colorado Rivers, not to mention countless articles, all while researching a book about Lake Powell of my own.
   
   That said, "The Glen Canyon Reader" offers a nice assortment of selections from many of those books, and a few articles and excerpts from books and magazines that are usually much harder to find. I would recommend it to anyone looking to get a rough overview of Glen Canyon history. The book's selections by Edward Abbey, Bruce Berger, and Jared Farmer, are terrific, especially the article by Jared Farmer (author of "Glen Canyon Dammed").
   
   While reading Jared Farmer's article, a line from "The Great Gatsby" kept flitting through my head: "You're worth the whole damn bunch of them put together." His almost shouldn't have been included, because it made most of the others seem inferior. In contrast to his, the historical excerpts from John Wesley Powell and from Escalante & Dominguez seemed dustier and more stale, the magazine articles seemed triter, and Katie Lee's book excerpt seemed even more crazed and poorly written that it would have seemed normally.
   
   Katie Lee's excerpt is a main reason I haven't rated this book higher. I just really don't like her writing, or her insanely political, idealizing, villainizing stance. I think her presence is a much bigger detriment to the case against Glen Canyon Dam that it is a help. Female folksingers are annoying. Poll America, and I'm sure the majority will agree with me. Katie Lee is like a Joan Baez singing awful rhymes about the Colorado River swishing between her legs; her poetry is awful; her cutesy sayings about the "Bureau of Wreck-the-Nation" are just not funny. Skip her excerpt, and you're reading a solid, four star book.
   
   The book is not a bad overview, though. I really did enjoy it. I do wish it had at least a single excerpt from the writings or oral history of some of of the Native Americans in the area though, and I think the editor could have done more to find another piece or two representing modern-day Glen Canyon, a.k.a. Lake Powell.
   
   Despite having read a lot on this subject the last few years, I did learn things from this book. It contains Floyd Dominy's out of print booklet "Lake Powell: Jewel of the Colorado," it has clues to the Everett Ruess mystery I haven't read elsewhere, and it features several stories of animals trapped by the rising waters of Lake Powell that were completely new to me. If you're passionate about this subject, absolutely, get this book. You'll almost certainly learn something new.
   
   And, if you know nothing about this subject, this really wouldn't be a bad place to start.



2. Got this book in advance of visiting area. While it had some good sections, it was very specific to dam/activities surrounding it. Good, but not great, book

3 comments about Lost In the Yellowstone: Truman Everts's Thirty Seven Days of Peril.

1. Today, being lost in Yellowstone National Park is as simple as turning on the wrong road after you lost your complimentary map or you can not locate the restroom in the Old Faithful complex. For Truman Everts, being lost in Yellowstone was a struggle between life and death. Everts's account details his 1870 adventure in Yellowstone after finding himself separated from his travelling companions. The separation began Everts's thirty-seven day struggle for survival in a pre-developed Yellowstone in which Everts had to find what little food and shelter he could just to survive. Readers will find this account to be a real-life struggle for survival reminiscent of Jack London's fictional work. The editor, Lee Whittlesey, does a superb job of editing Everts's story by providing the reader with additional information and the historical background of the book. The work is also illustrated with many early day photographs of Yellowstone which provides an stunning visual account of early-day Yellowstone National Park. This book will be appreciated by anyone looking for an exciting true-life adventure story as well as historians of the American West. People who have been "lost" recently in Yellowstone will also appreciate the book, even if their modern-day adventure pales in comparison to Evert's



2. Knowing the history of the exploration of this magnificent park makes me even more anxious to visit this beautiful country. After reading this book, when I visit YSNP, I will focus on a time long ago, when all the modern conveniences were not there. It is a great book to have read to get some of the background knowledge of this area, before you go out and explore yourself!



3. Besides being one of those - Why haven't I heard of this story before? - adventure stories, this book offers a great opportunity to further enhance the Yellowstone experience.

   I read this book while staying in a ranch outside Yellowstone National Park. As luck would have it, our first day of "touring" the park via automobile closely paralleled Truman's path, and I managed to read this story aloud to the kids later that night, in front of a big cast iron stove, while Clark's Fork gurgled 30 feet from the door. I'm not sure if it was the story or the setting, but they were captivated! They were able to tie Truman's adventures in with many of the places we had been earlier that day, and it gave them an entirely different perspective of the park. In addition to bringing the book to life (again - what a story!), it contributed immensely to their appreciation of Truman's ordeal, the magnitude of the park and the wilderness that lies 100 yards off the main roads... Highly recommended.

5 comments about Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert.

1. When Terry Tempest Williams starts this book with her simple equation place + people = politics, you know you've started reading a book meant to have political impact. But as the equation states, and as any TTW reader knows, you will be reading about place and about people, and you will be reading about these things as seen through the honest open heart of Terry Tempest Williams.

   Red is a collection of stories, poems, journal entries and thoughts centered in one place, the redrock desert of southern Utah. While reading Red I found myself feeling similarities with it and Steinbeck's The Long Valley and The Pastures of Heaven. Like both of those books, Red tells the different stories of separate people and the one place that connects them. But unlike those books, the stories in Red span hundreds of years. The place remains relatively unchanged through time. But the people and civilizations pass through this unchanging landscape living, making their mark on the land, and dying. TTW tells these stories in geologic time-desert time. The people stay connected.

   Hands connect the people. Hands appear everywhere in the book. Hands are the link between past, present and future. Hands come from the past in geologic forms with Anasazi handprints on clay pots and redrock walls, and a sharp obsidian chip "worked by ancient hands". They are in the present in biologic forms with a hand sliced open by the same sharp obsidian chip; one hand on the belly of a petroglyph while the other rests on a human belly in the present; and the story of children holding out hands to catch the desert's tears that drip from ferns. Then in the final paragraph hands are formed in prayer: "The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with hands clasped that we might act with restraint....Wild mercy is in our hands."

   I enjoy reading Terry Tempest Williams. Her writing seems to always reach out and touch me. She's done it again, and this time with Red hands.




2. This book made me feel very guilty that I am not out there taking a stand on conservation, supporting a cause, or putting my land into a conservation easement. Her passion as well as commonsense about wild areas is contagious! She clearly defines the political and social situations surrounding land use through a variety of short stories ranging from disagreements within her family to lyrical myth. Even though Red is about the Southwest US, it is about land use everywhere. As with all Williams's books, the writing is marvelous.
   This should be required reading for everyone who deals with land use (yes, developers included), is passionate about conservation regardless of what part of the world they live in, and all who recognize the need for wild places to sooth our souls and give us some perspective on life.



3. Both a piece of literary artistry and passionate activism, "Red"'s audience appeal is the broadest of any book I've ever read. The book's structure, both wild and bounded by cadences of space, conforms strategically to Ms. Williams' conceptual take on the color red - red represents heat, anger, unpredictability, the lifeblood of the earth that runs through human beings and all earth's creatures, and is concentrated in the searing deserts of the American West where Ms. Williams lives. A thematic tapestry though it is, it is, at its core, a living breathing message presented selflessly and succinctly by a woman who I believe understands the need for a lifelong journey down the parallel rails of human and non-human nature until these rails converge. I recommend this book highly.



4. Terry Tempest Williams created this book to fight for Wilderness with the best tool she has, her writing. The beauty of her words hang in the air and cut like a knife. When asked by a friend why she writes, Williams responds: "I write as an exercise in pure joy. I write as one who walks on the surface of a frozen river beginning to melt. I write out of my anger and into my passion. I write from the stillness of night anticipating - always anticipating. I write to listen. I write out of silence. ...I write because it is the way I talk long walks. I write as a bow to wilderness. I write because I believe it can create a path in darkness."



5. Terry Tempest Williams is without a doubt one of the finest writers to tackle the intricacies of the American West in literature of any sort. Carrying her own torch is impressive enough, but Williams also evokes the activism and urgent motivation that calls us to appreciate, respect and save our remaining western wilderness that was so powerfully put into words by Edward Abbey. I have reviewed a portion of "Red" before (see "Desert Quartet"), so I will limit this review to the remainder of "Red".

   Williams carries on the great and ancient tradition of storytelling to raise consciousness about uniquely Western, and specifically Colorado Plateau, issues. From the Hopi and Navajo peoples, down through the early American explorers, the proverbial cowboys and the present activist community, storytelling has been a central method of encapsulating emotion, opinion and experience into messages that have wide appeal. Williams, in stories such as "Coyote's Canyon" here in "Red", presents her powerful vision of an environmental movement wrapped in the spiritual connection with the stark, often harsh, always awe inspiring desert and given wings by action. Like Abbey, Williams does not shy away from controversy, and her opening to the title essay is a list of places that strangely grows longer each time I contemplate the names set forth. Williams gets personal here, and the blunt approach of listing over a hundred places brings to my mind the fact that I have walked on much of that ground... and that I have seen the critical need to protect these remaining places from the industrious uses and agricultural manipulation that has occured on the infinitely vaster balance of the Colorado Plateau. In this way, "Red" has demonstrated its effectiveness. Some may say that as a resident of California I might have no reason to comment on Utah... and I would, as Williams exhorts in "Red", flatly disagree. Every one of us has a responsibility to work toward a better world, and Williams manages to say this without preaching it or patronizing the reader. (Besides, my mother lives in southern Utah, and I have walked hundreds of miles of that beautiful land...).

   In summary, "Red" is another jewel of a book from Terry Tempest Williams. I am glad to see "Desert Quartet" back in print, though I sorely miss Mary Frank's wonderful illustrations that were in the original. This is a book which is not a difficult read, nor a scholarly treatise... rather, it is a frank, realistic look at a serious challenge facing the United States right now.