Explorer's Guide 50 Hikes in West Virginia: Walks, Hikes, and Backpacks from the Allegheny Mountains to the Ohio River (Explorer's 50 Hikes)

Been reading for 15 minutes and I already love the book. Seller 'Half Priced Books' commended for me paying for a Like New and receiving exactly that. Pleased. Thanks.

Known as the Mountain State, West Virginia is full of rural locations and rugged topography that can be explored only by trail. This guide points you to some of the best hiking West Virginia has to offer.As the title suggests, this guide describes 50 hikes in West Virginia. The entire state gets ample coverage including Monongahela National Forest, New River Gorge, Kanawha State Forest, state parks near Huntington, Wheeling, and Parkersburg, and even a few rail-trails. Several multi-day backpack treks are included, and 13 of the 50 hikes are more than 10 miles long. Nevertheless, there are also some hikes that are less than 2 miles long, so overall the difficulty is well-balanced. Each hike contains an excellent trail map copied from a USGS topo map, driving directions to the trailhead, a detailed description that often points out some of the unusual flora and fauna you may see on the trail. One odd feature for an old 50 Hikes guide is the color photos you will find in this guide. Some of the pictures are nice, but others are quite low resolution that really don’t allow you to see much. That’s about the only negative feature I could think of about this book.In summary, I have an entire shelf of hiking guides, and this one might be the best guide on the shelf. If you plan on hiking in West Virginia, then this guide belongs in your library.

thanks

This book serves a purpose, but in many ways one centered around the author's interests rather than that of his readers. The focus is weighted too much toward long, difficult hikes, many in challenging or poorly marked areas that are beyond the skills of the average day hiker. The author also tends to pontificate too much on how certain plants were named, how they came to be in that area and a lot of unnecessary information that you must skip past if you just want to know the trail route. I find this book unpleasant to read and I am growing impatient, may not finish it.

Purchased as a gift., along with a couple other WV hiking books Individual that received it said she was happy with the content/quality.

I'm very happy to own two copies of this book. One to carry in the field and in the car the other to keep at home. The argument that there is a lot of unnecessary information has some merit, but everything mention relates to things found on the hike and is well written. What a boring book it would be without it. Readers just have to be patient and appreciate what the author is trying to do. My biggest suggestion, would be the same as most hiking guide books, they need to be more specific when describing terrain on the hike that gives you the location of when to turn or where to go. Almost any given trail may look significantly differ even 4 or 5 years after these guides are written. Also, the author might think his directions are pretty straight forward, but if taking the trail in the winter with a snow cover, or in the fall with leaves everywhere but in the trees may look and need to be described differently than that mid-May hike the writer took. However, overall this is a well planned and very pleasant book. I recommend it highly.

This was a gift from a friend and I love it! It is a great source for maps and state location along with details on the hikes. Used it again this weekend for information!

Great Book! My husband and I have tackled several of the under 10 mile hikes and hope to progress while seeing more of our beautiful state.