Hiking Shenandoah National Park

Rating:
Summary: Excellent and Informative
Review: The guide is excellent. It is very well organized and very clear. I've hiked atleast 15 hikes following the guides in this book. A very, very worthwhile investment for the serious to occasional hiker.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent and succinct guide
Review: The guide is excellent. It is very well organized and very clear. I've hiked atleast 15 hikes following the guides in this book. A very, very worthwhile investment for the serious to occasional hiker.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent and Informative
Review: This book is a great companion for anyone hiking in Shenandoah. Each hike gives a very accurate description of the trail along with the degree of difficulty and elevation changes.

Rating:
Summary: Misleading, incorrect, yet complete.
Review: This book offers literally dozens of hikes throughout the Shenandoah National Park. We bought it -- at Shenandoah -- for that exact reason. We had gone out casually hiking on our own, without guides, and wanted book so that we could plan hikes better, and hike to some of the falls in the park.

Our first foray into the Shenandoah with the book as our guide was to Rose River Falls, pp. 86. This is a 4 mile, moderate hike, in a loop. Essentially, you drive to mile 49, park, cross the street, and walk a mile or so, and there the loop is for you to hike.

Or so the book says. It turns out that this is not the case at all. It describes a sharp right at a blue blaze. The first blue blaze, which is on your right, is also a right turn. It is not the correct right turn. In fact, it takes you to Shenandoah's Dark Falls, which are very popular. However, they also constitute -- only the trip up, mind you, which is where this inaccuracy deposits you -- a 'strenuous' hike. We hike one weekend a month, sometimes 3 weekends a month. We live in the area.

Our second foray, again using the book, was this time much better prepared. I brought with us a pedometer and a compass. We calibrated them before leaving, and set out on our hike. This time was for the Hawksbill Summit (pp. 84). Drive to mile 46, park, walk 100 yards, make a left at the white slashes, and proceed along the AT through the loop.

This did not happen. As it turns out, we hiked a full thousand feet (that is, 333 yards), and did not see a single white blaze. Nor a single white slash. We walked back down the path, and had a look. We had not, I am sad to say, missed anything. There are no slashes within a thousand feet of the road. There is no fork to the left, to the right, or anything. As it turns out, this time, we were presented with a sign from the park service. The turn on to the Hawksbill trail is .4 miles from the road. That's twice what we walked, 2,000 feet. Somehow the author of the book managed to confuse "100 yards" and "700 yards".

This is simply inexcusable. Hikers can get (and do get, as it turns out) lost due to this horrendously inaccurate information. I'm not sure what the other reviewers were hiking, but our luck (0 for 2) has been abysmal. We're getting another guide, and we're not going to trust that one without a GPS.

Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

Two stars given because it does include almost every trail in the park -- you'll just have to get another book if you want to hike them.