Rating: 
Summary: Surprisingly useless book.
Review: A lot of maps, pictures and wording. Absolutely no precise information about trailheads, approaches to the picks, trails and routs itself. A failed attempt to tall all about everything.
Rating: 
Summary: Not your average climbing guidebook
Review: Don't buy this book before flipping through it. If you're looking for a climbing guide along the lines of the typical area book, you'll be disappointed -- nothing in the way of route topos, and minimal route descriptions in many cases.If, however, you're looking to get into the wilderness and do some adventure climbing/heavy hiking, this book is perfect. Secor must assume his readers are intelligent and have the necessary skills for backcountry travel, navigation and route finding. The book is best as a general trip planning guide that one may supplement with other sources of information where more detail is wanted. Wouldn't take it on the trail with me, due to weight.
Rating: 
Summary: High Sierra backpackers and peak-baggers bible
Review: For anyone who spends time rambling around the High Sierra, this book is indispensable. It talks about cross-country routes, peaks, and "wrinkles" you cannot find information about anywhere else. If someone is looking for detailed routes and/or descriptions, you need to use another reference. Due to the area that this book covers, if it included more details that some desire, it would be several volumes. It is intended for the serious backpacker and peak-bagger...not specifically for technical climbs, but this book does get you going in the right direction.
Rating:
Summary: good "beyond the trail" guide
Review: I bought this book before heading out to the SF bay area for a summer project last year. I mainly used descriptions of off-trail routes to do some 1-day scrambles on various peaks in the Sierra as well as for an excursion off the John Muir trail on a backpacking trip through King's Canyon NP.
This book is meant for off-trail travel and technical climbing (and mostly the latter). If you really only want to stick to the trail it's the wrong guide, but the nice thing about the Sierra is that it's easy to leave the trail. I'm not a technical climber, but because the book is very comprehensive there's still lots of interesting stuff for me. It has shown me a side of the Sierrra that, being not familiar with this part of the US at all, I probably would not have seen otherwise.
Rating:
Summary: The most complete source for Sierra hikers and mountaineers.
Review: If you must own only one guidebook for the Sierra Nevada, this is the one to get. Here, Secor expands upon his first edition--itself being built on those which have gone before. With each new version, improvement comes from the additional routes, new information, more illustrations. And, errors are found and corrected. The pictures are particularly good this time around, with many of the important routes sketched in. Many climbers will prefer to simply take along a copy of the picture (first getting the publisher's permission, of course) rather than the written description. No matter what your reasons are for venturing into the high country, this book should satisfy all your planning and informational needs, and then some. An unfortunate byproduct is that--at over 460 pages and 2 pounds--few people will want to carry it on their backcountry trips. Simply put, Secor writes excellent guidebooks, and his experience shows. If I have any quibble with his present effort, it is that a number of the climbing routes are unnecessarily detailed and descriptive, leaving little for the first-timer to discover for himself. However, I have heard others say that many route descriptions are too skimpy for their liking, so you just can't please everyone.
Rating:
Summary: The most complete source for Sierra hikers and mountaineers.
Review: If you must own only one guidebook for the Sierra Nevada, this is the one to get. Here, Secor expands upon his first edition--itself being built on those which have gone before. With each new version, improvement comes from the additional routes, new information, more illustrations. And, errors are found and corrected. The pictures are particularly good this time around, with many of the important routes sketched in. Many climbers will prefer to simply take along a copy of the picture (first getting the publisher's permission, of course) rather than the written description. No matter what your reasons are for venturing into the high country, this book should satisfy all your planning and informational needs, and then some. An unfortunate byproduct is that--at over 460 pages and 2 pounds--few people will want to carry it on their backcountry trips. Simply put, Secor writes excellent guidebooks, and his experience shows. If I have any quibble with his present effort, it is that a number of the climbing routes are unnecessarily detailed and descriptive, leaving little for the first-timer to discover for himself. However, I have heard others say that many route descriptions are too skimpy for their liking, so you just can't please everyone.
Rating:
Summary: High Sierra backpackers and peak-baggers bible
Review: If you want to climb as many peaks as possible in the High Sierra, this is your book. Secor describes an enormous number of different hiking/climbing opportunities. He does not bother with the most obvious stuff, such as well-known trails that are easy to find, but instead tells you about places you might not have thought about. There is information on cross-country routes (such as George Creek, Tuttle Creek, and the Enchanted Gorge), which is important because these rough and difficult routes are not discussed in trail guides, and are also overlooked in climbing guides. This book might not be enough information for doing a technical climb on a big wall like Lone Pine Mountain or Tehipite Dome, but will tell you about the approach routes. This is useful if you want to get a good look at these mountains from some neighboring ridge, but don't necessarily want to scale the actual cliffs. It is better for wilderness trekking, off-trail hiking, and mountaineering than it is for pure wall climbing. It is therefore an ideal guide for people who want to cover a lot of ground and see some extremely remote and beautiful scenery rather than stay at one site and go up and down a wall.
Rating:
Summary: Great book for hard-core mountaineers
Review: If you want to climb as many peaks as possible in the High Sierra, this is your book. Secor describes an enormous number of different hiking/climbing opportunities. He does not bother with the most obvious stuff, such as well-known trails that are easy to find, but instead tells you about places you might not have thought about. There is information on cross-country routes (such as George Creek, Tuttle Creek, and the Enchanted Gorge), which is important because these rough and difficult routes are not discussed in trail guides, and are also overlooked in climbing guides. This book might not be enough information for doing a technical climb on a big wall like Lone Pine Mountain or Tehipite Dome, but will tell you about the approach routes. This is useful if you want to get a good look at these mountains from some neighboring ridge, but don't necessarily want to scale the actual cliffs. It is better for wilderness trekking, off-trail hiking, and mountaineering than it is for pure wall climbing. It is therefore an ideal guide for people who want to cover a lot of ground and see some extremely remote and beautiful scenery rather than stay at one site and go up and down a wall.
Rating:
Summary: Not For Novices
Review: Secor's Tome really is a wonderful book for experienced hikers with routefinding and rock scrambling skills. I can sit for hours with topo maps and his book, looking up peaks and routes. But be careful if you're a beginner (or experienced only on-trail) when reading the reviews that say this is the "Bible" for the Sierra or "the book to own if you're only going to own one". Beginners could easily get themselves into more than they bargained for.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Mountaineering Guide to the High Sierra
Review: There are just a few really good guides to mountaineering in the High Sierra and this book is the best of those. I've been backpacking the Sierras for 25 years and this book has become my #1 trip planning guide. Secor's detailed descriptions and breadth of knowledge, especially of the mountaineering passes provide indispensable information for anyone undertaking Sierra mountaineering travel.
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