1 comments about A Guide to Southern Utah's Hole-in-the-Rock Trail.

1. The iconography of the American West is full of discrepancies: the myth-making machinery of 19th century dime novels and 20th century Hollywood movies elevated some people and events into legends and totally ignored better stories. Even today, when revisionist historians have combed through western history to find women and African Americans worthy of hero-hood, one group largely remains off-limits for American hero-hood: the Mormons. Since the Mormons pioneered one of the harshest parts of the West, this means that some of America's most extraordinary pioneer stories have remained largely unknown outside of Utah. In all of American pioneer history, few stories can match the Hole-in-the-rock expedition for unlikeliness, determination, and ingenuity. Though this book is titled as a trail guide, it is first of all a good account of the adventure, along with plenty of photographs that bring home the toughness of the terrain. Then it offers a route guide, although after reading about this ordeal, some people may be content to stay home.

No comments about Southwest Camping Destinations: RV and Car Camping Destinations in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah (Camping Destinations series).

3 comments about Standing Rocks and Sleeping Rainbows: Mile by Mile Through Southeast Utah.

1. The layout and format of this book is extremely useful for planning day trips in easily accessable areas of Southeast Utah. There are many good references in regards to camping and backpacking trips if your so inclined. I found this book in my library and found it full of so much information I took it with me on my trip last May to Southeast Utah. It didn't let me down. The format uses highway mile posts for directions and I found this really easy to follow. I found it so useful I made the decision to buy it as two weeks was not enough time to explore all the areas listed.



2. This is a wonderful guide for auto travel in SE Utah. Using the mileposts as references was a great idea and easy to use. If we did not have this guide, we would have never found an off the beaten path dinosaur track site. A definate need to have refence book for the serious day tripper in Southern Utah. Wish K. E. Rivers would write another book.



3. A great book for exploring SE Utah by car, it is well researched, accurate and full of great advice and descriptions of what to find literally mile by mile and tenth by tenth.
   
   If you are only buying one book for travelling south east Utah and exploring by auto this is the one to buy.
   
   Black and White photos that show perfectly what to expect at each location, detailed and accurate maps of roads, trails and waypoints, campgrounds and facilities in each location and along the routes, good background information combined with accurate and in depth descriptions of most of the roads and two tracks in the region makes this a book you will want your 'navigator' to have open on their lap while you are driving.
   
   Pull over often and read the descriptions and information at each milepost and you'll get more from one 50 mile ride than you would get from a month of being here without this book.
   
   This is not a hiking book and the trail descriptions are not a Hikers Guide, so if you are a hiker you will want to pick up other books as well, but this book makes it a piece of cake to find each and every trailhead and to know what is at the end of each trail,or along it worth seeing.
   
   Don't miss out on this book.

No comments about Insight Guides Utah (Insight Guides).

No comments about Salt Lake City Then and Now (Then & Now Thunder Bay).

No comments about Glen Canyon-Lake Powell: The Story Behind the Scenery.

5 comments about Voyage of a Summer Sun: Canoeing the Columbia River.

1. From Canadian wilderness to Longview smelters, the book introduces all the issues that embroil the Columbia: from hydropower to nuclear waste to logging to salmon to treaties.

   Unable to dwell too long on any particular issue, Cody doesn't try to draw specific conclusions from his journey. His focus on the geologic timescale of the river leaves the impression that time will smooth the ripples of human folly. The down-to-earth stories of the people he meets argues that although the collective results might have been foolish, the participants were/are hard-working, well-meaning, humans.

   Beyond politics then, Voyage does a wonderful job of stirring the restless energy to explore and experience that wells up from the constraints of two weeks of vacation a year




2. Voyage of a Summer Sun is more than a book for canoeing the Columbia River. It is for everyone who wants to know and understand each stretch of the Columbia River better. History, landmarks, points of interest, characteristics, and nature of the river are thoughtfully and colorfully experienced from the author's excellent documentation of his 82 day canoe trip down the mighty Columbia



3. I thoroughly enjoyed this read. Cody's observations on the impact of technical advancement on an ecosystem were candid and not overly political or strident. This would be an excellent book for students of atmospheric and earth sciences. Robin Cody is a gifted story teller and narrator.



4. It's obvious from Voyage of a Summer Sun that Robin Cody loves the wilderness and the river, but he does an excellent job of presenting its importance without sliding very far into environmentalism per se, by which I mean he also shows the people and projects that have tampered with the Columbia, sometimes drastically, and he shows them with a minimum of slant.

   Cody's prose is easy to read, and his focus shifts pleasantly between the people he meets, the river itself, the issues surrounding it, and the workings of the canoe trip.

   The real problem I see is that Cody took his trip in 1990. Some of his information, obviously, is still solid, but in other areas, Voyage is getting dated. There's been a whole new round of power generation arguments, salmon policy changes, and weather shifts since then. The Hanford tank farms, in particular, have completed a major cleanup project, and a lot of the menacing toxic-waste threats he announces have been solved, softened, or shown to be less dangerous than thought. So it's a good book, but you have to read it with its age in mind.




5. Of the hundreds of books I have on the Pacific Northwest, this is easily one of my favorites. Aside from Robin Cody simply being an excellent writer, enjoyable to read, easy to follow, this book specifically invokes a true sense of place of the Columbia. It has a flavor of the classic Farthest Frontier, adventure, outdoors, wide open Northwest in the spirit of David Thompson, Theodore Winthrop, James Swan and the like (not to mention Lewis & Clark). Robin Cody evokes a sense of place right up there with the best like Stewart Holbrook, Murray Morgan, Ivan Doig, etc. The books touches on places here and there along the Columbia giving the reader a good feel for not only the Columbia of today, but in the past, before the Damns! Man thinks he's "tamed" the Columbia, but the majesty & power is still there and Cody conveys some of it. The main problem with the book is that it is much too short, I wanted more - I'd like to see the full journal of his travels. You couch potatoes (ok me too) dont really understand what it really means to spend nearly 3 months and 1200 miles in a itsy bitsy canoe on one of the world's biggest river. Clearly the mighty Columbia spoke during his journey, Cody listened well, and did a good job telling us about what the River said. A must read, along with the similar flavored The Good Rain by Timothy Egan.

4 comments about Great Hot Springs of the West: Arizona California Colorado Montana Idaho Nevada New Mexico Oregon Utah Washington Wyoming.

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."

1 comments about Fishing Utah.

1. This is a real find! For all of us that love fishing and Utah, this book has it all. I found Brett's descriptions to be on target, and his advice valuable. He obviously loves and knows his subject. I heartily recommend this book to all the anglers looking to Utah as a fishing paradise.

No comments about Rocky Mountain Fly Fishing.