Day Hike! Mount Rainier

Rating:
Summary: Good as a Supplement, but not a Primary Guide
Review: After buying both this book and "Hiking Mt. Rainier National Park" by Schneider, I would say this book definitely takes second place. The nice features are the detailed elevations and the topographic maps. He also gives anecdotal descriptions, like if there are mosquitos or not. However there are a couple of detractors. A few of the hikes are not really even in the park. He also intersperses some snide comments that I do not find humorous, though I guess that is what he was meant by them. A good book if you ONLY intend to day hike and not explore the park in depth, but for a really complete guide Schneider's book is a lot better, as well as being more professional and emphasizing the care that we need to observe to preserve this beautiful national park. However, I do recommend buying both of them for an even more complete hiking guide. They really do not overlap too much and the writing styles are so different you benefit from the information found in both of them about the same hike.

Rating:
Summary: Good as a Supplement, but not a Primary Guide
Review: After buying both this book and "Hiking Mt. Rainier National Park" by Schneider, I would say this book definitely takes second place. The nice features are the detailed elevations and the topographic maps. He also gives anecdotal descriptions, like if there are mosquitos or not. However there are a couple of detractors. A few of the hikes are not really even in the park. He also intersperses some snide comments that I do not find humorous, though I guess that is what he was meant by them. A good book if you ONLY intend to day hike and not explore the park in depth, but for a really complete guide Schneider's book is a lot better, as well as being more professional and emphasizing the care that we need to observe to preserve this beautiful national park. However, I do recommend buying both of them for an even more complete hiking guide. They really do not overlap too much and the writing styles are so different you benefit from the information found in both of them about the same hike.

Rating:
Summary: Great job
Review: I really enjoy reading Ron C. Judd's books. He has a terrific sense of humor and is not afraid to call them the way he sees them.
You can tell by the descriptions in this hiking guide that he's been out on every one of these trails. The book is organized so you can tell which hikes are best for beginners and which will be a long walk for any veteran hiker.
This is one of a series of three guides that is specifically written for day hikers, but it would be just as useful for anyone planning a backpack. Most of the hikes have a section on extending the hike, so just about anyone who shoulders a pack would benefit by this book
If you compare it to the other trail guides about Rainier, I think you'll find that this one is the most up-to-date and accurate book of all. Better than that, this one was produced by a real writer.

Rating:
Summary: A must for any trip to Mt. Rainier
Review: I was extremely pleased with this book. It is geared toward hikers of every level of fitness and ability. I found the NPS website confusing in its description of hikes, but this book did a very good job breaking down the various hikes by location, length, difficulty, and change of elevation, as well as providing a good description of what to expect. I took several hikes while at Mt. Rainier and found the book to be very accurate. It also has a number of practical tips which I found useful since I had never hiked at altitude before. I encountered other hikers who lacked guides and they were clueless and missed out on a lot. If you are going to take the time to get to the park, you should spend a few bucks on a book to guide you the rest of the way.

Rating:
Summary: Day hiking wonderland!
Review: We purchased two books on Mount Rainier hiking. This is by far the best. In fact we didn't even need to buy the other book. Ron does a surperb job of descriping each trail in detail. The ratings from easy to extremely difficult are very accurate. He gives elevation gain and rates each trail as far as beauty. The ratings of each trail is from 1 to 5 backpackers instead of stars and we found them to be completely true. We are backpackers as well as day hikers, but we wanted only to day hike these trails, so this book is just what we needed. My advise is to buy this book, it is really all you will need if you only want to day hike. Happy hiking!!!! I hope you enjoy Mount Rainier as much as we did.