Don't Waste Your Time in the Canadian Rockies: The Opinionated Hiking Guide

Rating:
Summary: Excellent hiking guide
Review: My husband and I spent a couple of weeks in the Banff/Jasper/Kootenay region last summer and relied mostly on this guide to choose our hikes. Boy was that a good decision. This guide has all the basics (round trip distance, elevation gain, estimated time, difficulty rating, directions to trailhead, etc.). What's more, it has a ranking system from "premier" to "don't do" based mostly on aesthetics. We tried hikes of all ratings and fully concurred with the author's opinions.

The book is also organized very well to help you find your hikes. It is split up into day hikes and backpacking trips (we are day hikers). Within those groups, the hikes are grouped into "quality" rankings and are numbered. The front of the book contains maps of each covered park (Waterton Lakes, Jasper, Banff, Yoho Kootenay, Mt. Assiniboine) with the associated hike numbers so you can find the locations of the best hikes, and/or see which are grouped closer together. And index in the back helps you find hikes by name.

If you're looking for information on accommodations or other activities in the area, this is not the book for you. Also, if you care about color photos (I don't), this isn't for you-- all pictures are black and white. However, I did not find that this absence detracts at all from the book's usefulness. The descriptions are quite mouth-watering enough on their own (and are often humorous).

This is one terrific hiking guide; I only wish similar ones were available for more parks!