50 Hikes in the Mountains of North Carolina (Fifty Hikes Series)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent guidance. Helps set expectations before trip.
Review: Found this book in B&B in Blowing Rock. It was a great help in planning our hikes. We had limited time, and it helped us find the best entry point, and to know, for example, that hiking to the top of Grandfather Mtn. was beyond our time and experience limits. That saved us $20 and no telling how much grief!

Good maps, good descriptions. Definitely will buy if plans to move to NC from Houston pan out.

Rating:
Summary: Very sparse coverage of a very rich subject
Review: There are over a thousand good hiking trails in North Carolina (Allen de Hart's "North Carolina Hiking Trails" describes 968 of them), yet this book only covers fifty. And much of the material simply quotes from trailside signs or visitor information pamphlets that you'll see anyway when you hike the trails. On the positive side, the book contains reproductions of topo maps for each hike listed, so casual day hikers can save themselves the trouble of buying topos. Unless you need the topo maps, Randy Johnson's "Hiking North Carolina" is a much better bet.