Playing It By The Book

Time has become a factor larger than mountains. Lewis and Clark had years to complete their great expedition while most modern adventurers are lucky to squeeze a week-long trip into their busy schedules.

The flood of guidebooks for just about every type of outdoor activity allows hikers, bikers and paddlers to fine-tune trip plans to unfamiliar locations well in advance. A $10-$20 investment in a good guidebook can save priceless adventure time.

When scouting for the right book, keep this in mind: Guides that span large areas, such as an entire state, are useful in introducing funseekers to new areas. Guides geared to smaller regions, however, tend to have more comprehensive coverage.

Mountain biking

Good guides have been out for years to cover fat-tire Mecca’s such as Moab, Utah. But they’re just starting to rise from the dust in the Inland Northwest.

Mountain Bike! Washington, by Alan Bennett and Chris and Laurie Leman (Menasha Ridge, 800-247-9437, ext. 100, $15.95) offers the broadest coverage available in a single volume, with decent descriptions and maps covering 87 trips. The book offers 18 trips in the Methow Valley, Colville National Forest and Spokane areas.

Mountain Bike America: Washington, by Amy and Mark Poffenbarger (Beachway, 888-232-2492, $15.95) offers state of the art maps, altitude profiles and descriptions, but covers only 33 trips in detail. Virtually all of far-eastern Washington is covered in small blurbs listed under “honorable mentions.”

A different Mountain Bike! series, with volumes for southwest and northwest Washington, by John Zilly (Sasquatch, 800-775-0817, $15.95) offers the most exhaustive coverage for the state’s regional area with great maps and details for technoids who pack GPS units on their bikes.

The author is one of the state’s most zealous fat-tire riders.

Falcon Publishing has begun offering a series of small books with coverage geared to cities, such as Helena and Bozeman, Montana.

Mountain Biking: Boise, by Martin Potucek (Falcon, 800-582-2665, $10.95) is a good example of where this series can lead. These books can make quality time out of down time one might have on business trips or class reunions.

Potucek also has completed a similar book in this series covering the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene area. It’s scheduled for release this fall.

Small-press publishers also have produced books specifically for Idaho’s Sun Valley and McCall areas.

Paddling

The rising demand for information on canoe and kayak trips that avoid raging rapids continues to spawn new books.

Kath and Ron’s Guide to Idaho Paddling, by Katherine Daly and Ron Watters (Great Rift, 800-585-6857, $18.95) is an excellent source for planning canoe and kayak trips on the best of the state’s flatwater and easy whitewater.

The maps are large, clearly detailed and useful and the authors are authoritative.

The coverage is comprehensive for all of Idaho, except the Panhandle. One section lists some of the best paddle trips in North Idaho, but avoids going where similar information has already been compiled.

Daly and Watters recommend in their book that canoeists and kayakers purchase Paddle Routes of the Inland Northwest, by Rich Landers and Dan Hansen (The Mountaineers, 800-553-4453, $14.95) to fill out the coverage for this region.

Paddling Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks by Don Nelson (Falcon, 800-582-2665, $10.95) is a nifty new guide, particularly for sea-kayakers looking for trips on Yellowstone and Shoshone lakes.

Hiking

Goal-oriented backpackers and day hikers who have a yen for the best should invest in the newly revised second-edition of Hiking the great Northwest, by Ira spring, Harvey Manning and Vicky Spring (The Mountaineers, 800-553-4453, $16.95).

This is a classic guidebook highlighting 55 of the greatest hiking routes in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, British Columbia, Canadian Rockies and northern California.

It’s a book for dreamers, with overview information for the who’s who of trails, including the Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier, the Pacific Crest Trail, the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island, the trek to Berg Lake at the base of Mount Robson in British Columbia and the Chinese Wall portion of Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness.

Entire guidebooks have been written for some of these routes. But the authors set the stage, with more than enough info to get you started, plus recommendations for day trips to sample the offerings.

And few if any regional guidebooks have a better collection of photos.

Discover Idaho’s Centennial Trail by Stephen Stuebner (Idaho Trails Council, 208-622-3046, $12.95) covers the 1,200-mile that weaves through Idaho from the Upper Priest River areas south to the Nevada border.

The book, like the trail, has its good and bad points. The trail is a series of established trails linked by roads and signs and suitable for foot, horse and bike traffic depending on the location. Portions of the route go through the best of Idaho, including the Upper Priest River and the Sawtooth Range.

The book offers information needed to explore the trail, although the production is weak and the maps are virtually worthless.