Tuolumne Meadows (High Sierra Hiking Guide Series)

Rating:
Summary: A fine hip pocket resource
Review: The small format High Sierra Hiking Guide Series is clearly an on-the-trail refresher series. For day hikers and 'packers alike one of these and the appropriate 7.5 topos will get you there and back. Most of the lyricism we expect from a Wilderness Press guide is present, though in an abreviated form due to size constraints: for the full treatment and as a home reference volume for picking potential trips (or reliving past ones) Sierra North, Sierra South and Yosemite National Park - A Natural History Guide to Yosemite and Its Trails are the way to go.
These are full decription tomes where you can smell the duff and here the crunch of the granite under your boots. Imagine my horror when I got back east and found their idea of a trail guide was more a mileage marker list, I guess the complexity of the trails is an issue but I've worn my second edition Sierra South to tatters from all the rereading and my East Coast guides (White Mountains, Vermont High Trail etc.) get read to keep me from getting lost and quickly reshelved as they have no feeling. FalconGuides are a bit better but where they overlap as with Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada the Wilderness Press are far superior a read tho if all you want is distance and elevation they'll do.

Rating:
Summary: Spectacular place, unspectacular guide
Review: This book is a real disappointment. My impression is that the author is speaking to someone who already knows the trails and the area well. It may be better than nothing, but it could have been much more.

In fact, I have been unable to find a Yosemite backpacking guide that wasn't a disappointment. There must be one somewhere. I am spoiled on excellent guides such as Hiking New Mexico (I don't recall the author), and particularly the Arkansas guides by Tim Ernst. All backpacking guides should be as thorough and thoughtful.